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1:48 scale dollhouse - which do you recommend


cloudbound

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14 minutes ago, Elsbeth said:

I've been having that issue with 1:48 - the houses don't have enough rooms for me! So I am building one myself, but another solution is the 23 room Hungerford Manor at Petworth miniatures. All the trim and flooring and wallpaper is provided - just paint and glue. And money.  Each roombox fits together to make a 23 room georgian estate. Holy cow. That is the sort of big 1:48 house I am thinking of! 

I also would go nuts for a 1:48 version of the 26 room Smithsonian dollhouse. Simple but roomy.

I too thought about joining various houses into a mish-mash of additions. It could be very cute.

Wow, I just googled the Hungerford Manor at Petworth miniatures. What a gorgeous house!

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1 minute ago, Mid-life madness said:

Wow, I just googled the Hungerford Manor at Petworth miniatures. What a gorgeous house!

26 rooms, 3 floors...and only 26 inches wide I think. 1:48 can deliver so much in so little room!

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It was too late to join - either on the sides OR underneath.  Well, at least joining one of the other 4 little buildings in the Greenleaf Village set.  I see I could've added another floor underneath and then just made the existing front door open onto a balcony.  But that would've meant fabricating the lower floor from scratch...  I possibly COULD do it but I think I'd rather start over from scratch.  Once I finish this little one I'll be feeling a little more comfortable with the 'scratch' thing.  I did add a porch around two sides and I think it makes the house look much more finished.  But I still have draperies to make, and the furniture inside.  But that's also fun for me.

  This is telling me I'm only allowed to upload 10.24 kb?  Is that postage stamp size?  Oh well - take my word for it, I added a porch along two sides and its cute.  :) 

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I've seen some great drapes and curtains made from paper (tiny pleats) and Victorian window shades/sheets of lace cut just right.

about hiding the on-off switch --I think a lot of people hide it under greenery alongside the house. 

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Thank you Jenn.  I hadn't even really thought it out enough to think about 'mounting' the house on some board that I could 'landscape'.  And I LOVE landscaping.  But this being my first tiny dollhouse I was pretty much just focused on the house itself.  So to hide the on/off switch I built a sort of wood box/base that I ran the wiring down into.  I think I could still do a wee bit of landscaping along the edges and potted plants on the covered porch.  

  Is there a reason for me being restricted to such a little file size?  10.24kb.  Should I have been deleting my previous photos or something?  

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Another issue I've had with 1:48 kits is the ceilings seem really low. I really do not like a ceiling under 3". Is it because of my big hands? Maybe. But I like tall ceilings and you can afford to have them in 1:48, so why not? Victorian houses can have 3" ceilings easily, but a lot of cottage kits have 2.25-2.5 inch ceilings and I find it so dinky. Every bit counts!

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1 hour ago, cloudbound said:

It was too late to join - either on the sides OR underneath.  Well, at least joining one of the other 4 little buildings in the Greenleaf Village set.  I see I could've added another floor underneath and then just made the existing front door open onto a balcony.  But that would've meant fabricating the lower floor from scratch...  I possibly COULD do it but I think I'd rather start over from scratch.  Once I finish this little one I'll be feeling a little more comfortable with the 'scratch' thing.  I did add a porch around two sides and I think it makes the house look much more finished.  But I still have draperies to make, and the furniture inside.  But that's also fun for me.

  This is telling me I'm only allowed to upload 10.24 kb?  Is that postage stamp size?  Oh well - take my word for it, I added a porch along two sides and its cute.  :) 

Try making an album, adding images , and then you can link to them. I have also had the upload warning, but it somehow went away or I'd just link from my albums. seems like a glitch somewhere. 

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1 hour ago, cloudbound said:

It was too late to join - either on the sides OR underneath.  Well, at least joining one of the other 4 little buildings in the Greenleaf Village set.  I see I could've added another floor underneath and then just made the existing front door open onto a balcony.  But that would've meant fabricating the lower floor from scratch...  I possibly COULD do it but I think I'd rather start over from scratch.  Once I finish this little one I'll be feeling a little more comfortable with the 'scratch' thing.  I did add a porch around two sides and I think it makes the house look much more finished.  But I still have draperies to make, and the furniture inside.  But that's also fun for me.

  This is telling me I'm only allowed to upload 10.24 kb?  Is that postage stamp size?  Oh well - take my word for it, I added a porch along two sides and its cute.  :) 

Need. To. See. The. Porch. 

 

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2 hours ago, cloudbound said:

Thank you Jenn.  I hadn't even really thought it out enough to think about 'mounting' the house on some board that I could 'landscape'.  And I LOVE landscaping.  But this being my first tiny dollhouse I was pretty much just focused on the house itself.  So to hide the on/off switch I built a sort of wood box/base that I ran the wiring down into.  I think I could still do a wee bit of landscaping along the edges and potted plants on the covered porch.  

  Is there a reason for me being restricted to such a little file size?  10.24kb.  Should I have been deleting my previous photos or something?  

You probably still will have to reduce the size of the image even an album. It won't be smaller in size (postage stamp) just the amount of KB will be reduced....lesser pixels and not as sharp.

I was informed about http://www.picresize.com/ 

by someone on this site. It is free. It is an extra step, but easy.

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I saw the same error as you, but then I went and created a new album (which was like a maze - finding the place to do that) and it let me upload large 1 and 2mb files. ??? Hence the batch of photos of 1:48 scale stuff that look rather rustic when seen close up in the gallery view right now. But boy do I love 1:48! But seriously - it let me upload big photos.

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The good 

3 hours ago, cloudbound said:

Thank you Jenn.  I hadn't even really thought it out enough to think about 'mounting' the house on some board that I could 'landscape'.  And I LOVE landscaping.  But this being my first tiny dollhouse I was pretty much just focused on the house itself.  So to hide the on/off switch I built a sort of wood box/base that I ran the wiring down into.  I think I could still do a wee bit of landscaping along the edges and potted plants on the covered porch.  

  Is there a reason for me being restricted to such a little file size?  10.24kb.  Should I have been deleting my previous photos or something?  

So the cool think about you building on its own base is that...if you really wanted to invest in landscaping...you could do something like this landscaping base for EACH SEASON! Autumn, winter, summer...and just drop the house on the base into it. Voila - seasonal changes for your little house!

https://www.petitepropertiesltd.com/images/source/Pumpkin_Cottage_Display_Base_Made_Up_Painted_48th.JPG

I hope to do something like that one day, but I have a lot to figure out about landscaping. I love the idea of the changeable base.

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Try looking at Petite Properties website if you're interested in quarter scale. Their houses aren't that pricey - some of them are only £15. (I'm not sure what the postage costs are like, to the US, though.) I can't advise on wallpaper, though as I don't use it for that scale - I usually use craft paints and thin strips of balsa wood to decorate it. Their furniture isn't that badly priced, either, but you have to make the kits up and paint them yourself.

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15 hours ago, Icewolf said:

I Try looking at Petite Properties website if you're interested in quarter scale. Their houses aren't that pricey - some of them are only £15. (I'm not sure what the postage costs are like, to the US, though.) I can't advise on wallpaper, though as I don't use it for that scale - I usually use craft paints and thin strips of balsa wood to decorate it. Their furniture isn't that badly priced, either, but you have to make the kits up and paint them yourself.

I have several Petite Properties kits and they are great, but...their ceiling heights are routinely very short for me --this is, I am sure, realistic for the cottages they make --but their beautiful chateau dollhouse has short ceilings for what I think should be a grander interior. 

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4 hours ago, queenannediva said:

Have you seen Paula's Nob Hill?   http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/24763984

 

Oooh, pretty! Great to see how she has painted the exterior as I was thinking I'd do a lighter colour scheme too rather than the dark original. Such a cute house. Also, they have an installment payment plan....

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Oh my goodness, now I have found Petite Properties thanks to someone , I could get the whole Memory Lane row on my studio windowsill and then some. I have never had any experience at all with wood items this small so am a bit nervous but very tempted. Is it really hard to work with them this small.

I am starting to think there maybe a whole new world of housemakers that sell this size house .

 

Jeannine

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I do recommend painting them before you put them together, both inside and out, but I find the houses themselves quite easy to work with - the difficulty comes when you put the furniature together because that is quite fiddly and it's easy to lose or break them. Some I bought from one brand was so thin that they broke as I was putting them together, but I've not had that problem with Petite Properties because they make theirs thicker. Jane Harrop also does some nice kits too, and they're made out of balsa wood.

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23 hours ago, Icewolf said:

I do recommend painting them before you put them together, both inside and out, but I find the houses themselves quite easy to work with - the difficulty comes when you put the furniature together because that is quite fiddly and it's easy to lose or break them. Some I bought from one brand was so thin that they broke as I was putting them together, but I've not had that problem with Petite Properties because they make theirs thicker. Jane Harrop also does some nice kits too, and they're made out of balsa wood.

Yes! I bought some gorgeous little kits from other makers and various bits would break off while I was building it. I guess the sturdiness of the PetiteProperties kits had spoiled me. So now I use great care with the fiddly furniture if I end up making any.

Petite Properties kits take acrylic paint nicely if it isn't overloaded or watered down. I wipe my brush and almost dry-brush it on. And I have found the Pitt Artists pens fantastic for wood effects. There were a few chairs where I put too much acrylic on it and a leg of the chair began to expand. I guess I really watered it down...oops! Less is best in 1:48 lesson learned.

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