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Michaels' Puzzle Houses


DorothyB

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I'm just starting the last one of the old kits for a birthday gift for my youngest granddaughter. She'll be 3, so I'm going for sturdy and colorful, rather than realistic or detailed. This will be a real challenge and change for me! I'm marking the floors this morning and will try to get them stained. I want to work on the trading post, but want to make sure this is done and ready to go!

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Well, I put enough of the castle together to know that these just won't work for my granddaughters. So I put the castles aside, bought two of the other models and promised their mother that I'd paint them in more subdued colors.

However, the castle has some really cool leftover pieces once they're popped out that I'm thinking would make great little headboards. So it's not a total loss!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not sure if this will help anyone but I just went to Michaels last saturday and they had a whole shelf full of these little kits. I had to grab two after seeing what could be done to them and with a 40% coupon who could say no. I got the one that resembles the Arthur and the Tennyson type house. Already have major plans for the Arthur type to turn it into a Christmas House. Very excited to try and bash it into a respectable dollhouse.

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I didn't realize that the Fantasy Villa one was so tiny! I thought it was larger... how cute! I would think that the puzzle furniture would be too large for it?

I thought to make one a Christmas house also, Kabrina...maybe the Tennyson knock off.

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I don't think they had any intention of anyone trying to furnish it. It's purely decorative. Certainly not half scale, but not small enough to be a smaller scale. It's just a house! I'm going to do mine up for Christmas and just stuff the rooms with holly, candy, small toys, stuff like that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi everyone! :lol: Long time no post!

I spied these little beauties at Michaels, then hurried here to see what everyone thought! I've browsed through the threads about them, and went back to get my own kits! I think that a Michaels house will be a perfect "practice" house before I attempt a 1:12 scale house for the first time, maybe over this winter.

I brought home the house with a veranda, the house with the tower (not the fantasy castle), and one of the furniture sets. I also picked up some sealer (do I seal the pieces before assembly?) and wood glue.

I am brand new to dollhouse building and I'm very excited! I think that I'll start with the house with the veranda, as it's the smaller of my two, and give it a whirl.

I don't know exactly how to go about this, so bear with my plan:

1) Seal pieces front and back (I think?), carefully labeling with masking tape or something as I go

2) Dry build

3) Painting?

4) Glue/Final Assembly

5) Wallpapering

6) Furnishing! Woohoo!

Do I have this out of order? I am new to the hobby without a dollhouse guru to ask in person, so I'm really thankful that I can come here! Happy building, everyone!

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I prefer to paint after assembly and I don't bother with priming / sealing, but that's a personal preference!

The house with the veranda is the one I built, but I got my kit last year so it might be slightly different.

I blogged about the build (see here for links) -- it's not step by step, but some of the the early posts might help you visualize and get ideas for how to approach the build.

Can't wait to see what you do with yours!

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I haven't built any of the Creatology kits, but I have two Wood Craft kits I will eventually build (same thing, different name). Sealer is OK if you live in a damp climate and your wood might be subject to warp.

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I've made four. I've been haunting my two local Michaels stores to find the furniture kit or the one house I don't have, but no luck. I have two I haven't done -- the fantasy castle -- one of which I started, but there were broken pieces which was distressing.

I didn't prime any of them, but had todo at least two coats of paint -- this wood sucks it up!

As for wallpaper, I think it would be well nigh impossible to do accurately after the build.

Here's what mine look like (don your sunglasses!):

gallery_5594_4417_1899825.jpg

gallery_5594_4417_206448.jpg

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I wallpapered mine after assembly, and I think it turned out okay! The only part I wasn't able to do was the inside of the gable. Had I realized how tight that would be, I would have papered the undersides of the gable roof pieces before attaching them. I did the rest by shoving in scrap paper and folding it at the angles to make templates, then tracing these onto the scrapbook paper I used for the walls.

I like my wallpaper to cover the gaps where the wall/roof pieces meet, and I have a hard time visualizing the angles before assembly, so I almost always wallpaper after the build.

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I do on most of it, but on the top floor, I papered before I put the roof on. However, on the faux Tennyson, once it's together, it was nearly impossible to get the window frame in there and glued on that round window in the very top.

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Dorothy, your houses are great...the blue one is adorable.

I think Michaels must be out of the furniture until next summer...at least I hope. After I finished my furniture kit, it turned out so adorable that I hotfooted it back to Michaels to try and buy up whatever they had left...at $3 each...to offer them to those here who can't find them and don't want to pay the ridiculous prices they charge online. However, they were ALL gone...darn!

Personally, I dry fit it first to get my colors visualized, take it apart, paint it, then reassemble and glue it. But that's just me. There is no right or wrong way to do it. I think if you dry fit it, you will get an idea of what you are working with and which areas/rooms would be impossible to paint once it was glued together.

Enjoy!

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Nobody told me that the wood would smell so great when I opened the package. I think I sense the beginning of a dollhouse addiction coming on!

LOL I thought I was the only one who thought this! :) I opened mine today after getting a small order for windows and a door to bash into a respectable dollhouse and I have the holes re-cut, all structual changes made and the shell half way glued together. I am loving this house and wish I had bought more. If left as is it makes a good toy but is so easy to adapt and is sooooo much cheaper than buying a shell. Only complaint I have is that it is too small too include a staircase and that drives me nuts :) I hate it when my little people have no way to get upstairs without magic...oh well it's still a great buy.

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Hi the one I got has the porch on the front. It does come with the staircase but the upstairs door opens halfway over the stairwell and the stairs that come with it are very toyish. Didn't want my little person to fall to there death. I have a 1/2 scale staircase which I placed in to see if I could use that but it was too long. So then I thought of moving the stairwell and using a small spiral staircase but I couldn't find a place that didn't look awkward to me. So in the end I didn't punch out the stairwell, glued it in place and filled the small out line with wood filler and sanded. I will be priming today and getting ready to add the siding. Fov's Michael's House has been amazing inspiration for me. So thanks so much Fov! :wub:

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It looks like a Houseworks staircase could just fit against one of the side walls. (There isn't supposed to be a window there -- I added that!) Or maybe cut off the last few stairs and make it so the staircase turns 90 degrees, with a landing. Either way, you could build a little built-in closet under the stairs...

I'm actually finding that the living room is a bit too large, I'm having trouble arranging the furniture in a way that makes me happy. If I'd left out that window on the side and instead added a staircase, that could have made the room a bit smaller and provided the little people with a way to get upstairs. Hmm... a thought for if/when I ever build the other one in my stash!

post-7-1284327595_thumb.jpg

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