Jump to content

Hey, from Laurie

Laurie82

By Laurie82
in New Member Introductions

 Share

Recommended Posts

Laurie82

Laurie82

Posted
Posted

Hey I just ordered the fairfield house. I'm waiting for it to be shipped at the moment. It's the first house i've ever built. Well besides the occasional popsicle stick houses I made quite a few years ago. I'm very excited. I'm wondering if there will be a lot of extra material I will need to buy for the building process, do i need glue? I know i will need paint and other supplies for the interior, but i'm just thinking about the outside first. Anyways, YAYAYA i'm building a dollhouse. I've been wanting to for so long . I cant wait. I have a digital camera so hopefully if it isn't too much of a mess I will take pictures. I hope it gets here soon,

Laurie

Link to comment
Share on other sites
THmini2

THmini2

Posted
Posted

Welcome Laurie. You are going to love this hobby, it can be addicting. Yes you will need glue, also sandpaper, exacto knife, masking tape (alot of us use blue painters tape), We use the tape to do a dry fit to see if all the pieces fit together (need sanding, ect) and to see if we have the pieces in the right places. It sounds funny, but alot of us have stories of mistakes we have made. You want to do this before you glue anything. It also helps you to see if you need to paint or wallpaper anything before you glue it together. Some places are very tight in some houses and it is hard to get your hands in after it is glued together. The tape also holds the pieces tight until the glue dries. Some people use clamps also, for some small pieces clothes pins make good clamps. The ones where you squeeze one end. NEVER use hot glue, it will come apart down the road. Read your directions over and over until your sure that you understand them. I usually punch pieces out as I need them. Some people punch them out and mark them with a pencil and put them in baggies. This might sound like alot to remember, but just take your time and the main thing is to have FUN! We are here to answer any questions. Someone will have the answers. Alot of people have built the fairfield so if you type it in the search at the top of the page you will be able to some of them. Also go to the galleries and type in Faifield and you can see some pictures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
havanaholly

havanaholly

Posted
Posted
Hey I just ordered the fairfield house. I'm waiting for it to be shipped at the moment. It's the first house i've ever built. Well besides the occasional popsicle stick houses I made quite a few years ago. I'm very excited. I'm wondering if there will be a lot of extra material I will need to buy for the building process, do i need glue? I know i will need paint and other supplies for the interior, but i'm just thinking about the outside first. Anyways, YAYAYA i'm building a dollhouse. I've been wanting to for so long . I cant wait. I have a digital camera so hopefully if it isn't too much of a mess I will take pictures. I hope it gets here soon,

Laurie

Well welcome to the "little" family, Laurie, and I can't wait to see how you like building in 1:24 scale (most of Greenleaf/ Corona Concepts house kits are 1:12 scale, 1"=1', but in the Fairfield 1/2"=1'). I just built a 1:24 scale haciendita, the pictures are in my "la casita" album; and I have a couple of Fairfield kits waiting patiently in fear & trembling in their place in the pile, as I plan to try bashing them together.

There are a lot of "getting started" posts scattered throughout the forum, but here's my "basic" approach:

Open the box, close your eyes and sniff the wood (a new kit smell is second only to that of tiny babies); you can go ahead and pet it, too, although you'll probably want to hold your piece of sandpaper when you do. Remove the acetate sheet with all the window inserts on it and lay it between the folds of the "Warm-Up" paper and set it out of the way, but in plain vies, wo you will find it when you need it; I can tell you right now that the most important thing the Warm-Up sheet tells you is "Don't panic!".

Remove the sheets of paper for the instructions and read them through. Place them back in the box and give the wood a final pat and close the box.

Now you're ready to begin to gather your supplies:

wood glue

craftknife or utility knife

sandpaper (super cheap emeryboards will work, especially if you have a free source)

masking tape

clamps (you can never have too many clamps); also large rubberbands, old textbooks or encyclopedias (for weighting things down so they glue flat & TIGHT)

Usually by now your mind begins to fill with images of how "you" want the house to look, ways "you" may want to change the basic design, etc. From experience I can tell you that is the kit speaking to you. You may have some idea in mind before you open the kit of what you want the house to be, but it it begins to change under your hands, it's the kit talking to you; when that happens, LISTEN! Don't try to force anything on it it doesn't want (and it will tell you' wallpaper will bubble & rip, stairs won't fit, and all sorts of things will drive you here to tear your hair & cry; it's better to listen to the kit and do it the way it wants.

Now you're ready to open the box again. This time remove both the instructions and the schematics sheet. Study on the schematics shhet to see which pieces are where. Now read through the instructions again, locating the parts on the schematics sheet. You can mark the pieces if you wish; I write the part name in ink on a bit of masking tape and stick the tape to the backside of the piece. I do NOT punch out the pieces and bag them, I carefully lift the stack of plywood sheets out of the box and wet them aside and then place them back into the box with the highest-numbered sheet on the bottom and lay them back in order so that sheet #1 is on top of the pile in the box; as I do this, I compare the plywood sheet from the box to the schematic, making sure I can identify the part on the plywood sheet with its place on the schematic. When I have satisfied everyone that all the parts are there I lay the schematics sheet aside with the window inserts and read through the instructions a third time, mentally building the house as I read.

Sometimes as I read I think, that doesn't make sense; or, but if I do this at this point, I should already have... That's when you do what we who have already built a kit call the "dry fit". Not only does this show you whete you might need to trim a tab a tad smaller, or slightly enlarge a slot, or sand something smooth & even; but especially with a smaller scale kit, you need to see which rooms will be impossible to decorate once the house is glued together (like tower rooms and narrow hallways). If I'm building something like the Fairfield, with seeral rooms, I'll put the shell into dry fit and let it sit for a few days/ weeks while the kit tells me which rooms it wants where and if it wants me to make anything bigger or smaller or extra (bashing) before I start to glue it together.

Ben is revising all the instructions, basically because so many of us have built so many of these kits that we don't follow the directions exactly. You do NOT have to seal everything, and shellac isn't necessary when there are lovely clear sanding sealers on the market; if you're going to use stain you'll want to do that, and if you want to paint or wallpaper you'll want to prime the wood first. You'll probably figure out, after the third reading of the instructions, that it might be easier and less messy to wait until after the rest of the house is built and decorated to put on the windows & doors and their trims, and that you might want to sand and stain or paint your trims before gluing them in place, and especially before gluing on those acetate inserts.

Hopefully he'll also change the recommended adhesive to carpenter's wood glue or tacky glue instead of hot glue. If you want to see what can happen over time, I have pictures on the last page of my "Laurel rehab" album showing the condition of the Saurel a lady gave me for US$2 to rehab (it was my Toys for Tots dh last year).

You are going to have SO much fun building your first dollhouse that you might find yourself wanting to do it again, and that's perfectly OK, many of us have built more than one kit.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...