What's everyone working on?

[ilovecats]

This week I have been working on a couple of different roombox kits.

[cinderspritzer]

(well, actually I didn't measure at all, but that's neither here nor there). 

 

I can hear the lecture my grandfather would give me for this. Thanks ever so for the laugh

Edited May 21, 2015 by cinderspritzer

[minigrandma10]

Took picture of my Steampunk house for the 2015 Orange County Fair in California. Still have the finishing touches to do, but I hope you enjoy the picture. It is a modified "Orchid".

 

 

 

 

[MiniCrazy]

You have "imagination gone wild" in your head!  absolutely Wonderful!

[rodentraiser]

I can hear the lecture my grandfather would give me for this. Thanks ever so for the laugh

 

Let's just hope Norm Abrams never sees anything I built.

 

Update. The floor that had to be redone didn't need to be redone. The floor in the main house that had been reinstalled after cutting a doorway was sloping wrong. I believe that was the floor I referred to in another thread that was going south by southwest. It is now straight. With a lot of swearing, problem solved, except.......

 

You see, I originally added a laundry room. Then I enlarged that to make room for a half bath in the remodel and got a mudroom, too. Now, adding a floor to a floor is never a good idea, but when did that every stop me? So a couple weeks ago I added another floor to a floor which was the pantry. However, there comes a time in the life of every miniaturist when she picks up the laundry room/mudroom/pantry and watches it fold over like a limp noodle that the realization of a new base must be assessed.

 

So this weekend I did what I did best. I knocked all the walls off the various bases and then made a single base for everything, to make one large addition. I needed to enlarge the laundry room yet again (by about an inch), so I can add the laundry room sinks in there. That inch, however, comes from the mudroom, which means I no longer have an enlarged mudroom anymore. Ah, well.

 

Everything is drying this week and next week everything will be nailed together again. Except I also ran out of wood. Again! Seriously, I'm beginning to wonder if ANY of the original house is left. I think I've redone everything I've originally done and replaced every wall in that poor house.

 

And then there's the nails. I found out pulling the base apart that I had been using a heavier, longer brad than I'm using now. This might account for all the times recently when I've slugged a nail into the wood with blow that would have made me a home run hitter in baseball, only to watch that nail go in straight as a die and FOLD in two instead of go through the wood. If someone had told me wood was that hard, I'd never have believed them. At any rate, the result now is 1 nail goes in for every 3 that get bent, go in wrong and need to be pulled out (with my teeth occasionally!), or are too high and mighty to think they are nails. I should buy stock. After 30 years of this and still not being able to cut a straight line with a jigsaw, I'm belatedly beginning to realize I was not born with the carpenter gene. Instead I got the stupid "If you believe it, you can do it" gene, which was later joined by the "But we didn't mean dollhouses" gene.

 

And oh, yes, I found out hutches will indeed fit through windows and doorways when you drop them and they break in two.

 

I wonder if it's too late to join the Army.

 

 

 

 

 

edited because I apparently have the "can't spell worth a %^&$" gene, too.

[Selkie]

Sounds like my kind of day!!!

[stargrl33]

After taking over a year off from dollhouse building due to wedding planning (gross, glad that's over) I have been making fairly steady progress on my first dollhouse (Fairfield). Today I put the window and door trims up in the living room and kitchen areas. Aside from the window seat that I want to build for the living room windows and maybe some baseboard trim to cover up stains on the bottom of the wallpaper, the living room is finished.

 

I'm hoping to buy some paint for the attic walls and ceiling this week so I can finally put the roof on. The roof is basically the last "major" thing left on the dollhouse - once that is on, I have to do the outside trim and exterior paint job. I am unhappy with the trim pieces that come with the kit - a lot of them crumbled on me when taking them out. The ones that didn't crumble will most likely fall apart when I try to sand them. So I'll have to figure out whether I can do without them, or find a replacement.

 

The Fairfield is designed with an inaccessible tower room in the attic, but I have some ideas on how to open that space up to the rest of the attic. Hope it works out. I have seen it done a few other places online so it's definitely possible and should look great if I do it correctly.

 

I have been bumming the past few weeks due to the Fairfield staircase set-up...I saw a blog online that showed someone else who actually flipped the staircase and added an additional one going up to the attic, and I am kicking myself for not thinking of the idea myself. It looks so much better in my opinion. It's a bit late now since the staircase is inaccessible at this point, but I have been toying with the idea of rigging up an outside, spiral staircase that will lead from a second floor window that I'll turn into a door and up to the attic.

[LadyGunn]

Kelly, I'm sorry but your post made me laugh! Just think of it as a dance - two steps forward and one step back. Would that be a tango? Cha-cha? No idea, but they both sound fun.

 

Jen, if you want replacement trim, Heritage Laserworks has some amazing pieces.

[MiniCrazy]

So Anna has changed her mind on the kitchen cabinet doors. I spent hours printing and sizing the pictures for those doors but in the end I like the new look. What do you think?

[blueirishmoon]

The cottage beadboard looks so much better! I think those little pictures were just a bit too "kitschy" for me. Reminded me of the walls of this S'barro's pizza place on I95 in FL. We'd stop there for lunch on the way to see my grandma in Melbourne Beach-Indiatlantic area.

[KathieB]

Cheryl, I like the new look, too. :thumb:

[havanaholly]

Cheryl, it looks SO much better!

[MiniCrazy]

Thank you ladies! The picture idea didn't look as good as it did in my head. I'm starting to question my decorating skills at this point but it is resolved so time to move on.

[havanaholly]

Your decorating skills are just fine, obviously, from the revised try.  Never be afraid to try out your ideas to see how they look.  What might be unsuitable for one application might be just the smoke & mirrors for another.

[CheckMouse]

My fingers are itching to get back to Miss Appleby, but RL keeps tripping me up. But today, in between yucky stuff like paying bills, I found some time to work on a template for the scratch-built 1:144 house that will go inside the Appleby Cottage.  It will be a replica of the big one, so I'm measuring and calculating and drawing and revising, ad infinitum!  It's just about ready to print out. I'm using 1/32" thick balsa wood for it. I don't have a laser tool or anything fancy for cutting the heavier wood, so balsa will have to do.  

 

When I was at work a few months ago, a vendor near me had a bunch of silver charms she was selling. She was discontinuing that line and wanted to just get rid of them quickly and cheaply - my favorite kind of vendor!  She had the most adorable little houses 1 cm square, with windows and doors drawn in; they open in the middle and there is a little heart hanging from the top, and in the center of the heart is a real diamond. I bought several of them, and the next day I realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so I went back and bought the rest of them in her stash.   She had sold them in her store for $90 retail! So one of these adorable little houses will go inside the 1:144 house - inside the 1:12 house - inside my 1:1 house. 

[MiniCrazy]

Love the quad mini! Great find

[MiniCrazy]

Thanks Holly

[L Swearengin]

Started and finished my sweet shop.  I had loads of little candies and sweets in my stash, they just needed a home.  Then on the 100 mile yard sale during memorial day weekend, I rescued a really sad house that my spouse said should be in the burn pile.  Well it didn't go in the burn pile and is almost done (are they EVER??).  photos in the gallery.  On to another rescue

[havanaholly]

Lawanda, you are a kind soul!

[otterine]

I built a room box start to finish this weekend.    It's a quick change room for photographing minis so I don't have to recreate the wheel every time I want to photographing something.

 

http://www.otterine.com/blog/blog1.php/the-maple-room-construction

 

Pics in my gallery here, too:

http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=7307

[Roxxie2]

Hi Folks!   I have been out of the mini building for a couple of months but I couldn't stand it any longer.   I bought a Shadybrook Cabin with my HBS discount.  Then I went slightly berserk and bought a bunch of "cabin" minis at HL today so now I just have to wait for everything to arrive in the mail! Does anyone have any tricks to assembling those open stairs that come with GL kits?   I never put stairs in my builds because I am afraid to do the stairs. Sad huh?

Anyway, I can't wait to get started! 

 

Am I allowed to use the initials of the companies mentioned above???   I will edit if I shouldn't. 

[havanaholly]

Roxy, I find that a gluing jig is a big help with stairs.  My first set were built using a box lid and spring-loaded clothespins.

[rodentraiser]

Well, the addition that was just a laundry room got redone and reput together and it is now a laundry room/half bath/mudroom/pantry with an extra room upstairs. I was going to make that the master bath and make the original bath the sitting room, but now I'm having second thoughts. If Ikeep the original bathroom, then I can make the room above the pantry a walk in closet. complete with shelves, a dresser, closet, a vanity, and a chair or two.

 

And it looks like I may not get my sink. I had won a sink on eBay - a Reutter Porzellan sink for only $11 - but then the seller emailed me and said he had been in an accident and it might be a while till things were sent out. He now has 3 negative feedbacks about not sending stuff and I have put in a case myself with eBay. I've sent a couple of emails and have not heard anything back, so I may be getting my money back, but I would far have preferred to get the sink. So now I'm back to square one with finding a sink.

[CheckMouse]

They say necessity is the mother of invention!  I really needed a small gluing jig. I have the 10" square one sold at Micro-Mark and I love it. But I am planning to start working on minis at my booth at work, during the slack hours when no one is around. (I work 12-hour days at the County Fairs.) Mine is too big for that. I found just what I want online - it's only 3" x 5". Perfect! But it costs $20, plus s/h.  Not terribly expensive but right now my budget is extremely tight (car repairs, septic system repairs, etc). I kept looking at the one for sale, and read the description, and realized I just might be able to replicate that. In my stash I have a few plastic picture frames, the type that usually are for documents. One is 3.5" x 5".  It's plastic - magnets won't work. I looked at the description of the "for sale" one again - it is wood, aluminum, and a galvanized steel bottom for the magnets. I kept rummaging and came across a sheet of metal (purple), with magnets, that I picked up years ago at the dollar-store, designed for posting notes and pictures. DH was able to cut it to size for me, to fit neatly in the bottom of the picture frame. Voilà - a jig was made!   Now I have a gluing jig to carry with me, and it's plenty big enough for the 1:144 scale builds.  And the cardboard "innards" to the picture frame is a hollow box, so I can stash the magnets in there when I'm on the move.  Here's a picture of it:

 

 

   At the last event I worked I was able to get started on the 1:144 scale Appleby Cottage, the Micro Appleby, so it is officially started.

 

[havanaholly]

Brilliant solution!