taking the plunge

[beckybell]

I have always wanted a doll house and have been thinking of buying a kit for a very long time. I am leaning towards the beacon hill. I was wondering if some one who has built this house could tell me if the instructions are simple... and does it include finishing instructions....

I am curious about things like... should you wall paper and paint as you build.... or biuld the entire kit then worry about finishing later?

Any hints or links anyone could give would be so appriciated!

Becky

[Hallowell]

I've never built it but I heard the roof can be tricky. But don't let that scare you offf, it's a beautiful house. It's on my shopping list.

[CJEP]

Hi and ! I also have never built it, but would give a piece of advice to start with a smaller house to begin. You will learn a lot from your first build and then you can use your knowledge on the Beacon Hill. Just my advice. You can take it with a grain of salt though. Good luck!!

Carrie

[havanaholly]

If you read over the instructions several times with the schematics sheet in one hand & petting the wood with the other eventually it becomes clearer. I would recommend studying other members' gallery pictures and posts about this house. If this is the house you want to build, I'd say go for it!

[newt]

hello, and welcome!

it is a beautiful house, and i want one, too.

i'd think that with Greenleaf's customer service and with all the help available on these forums you'd be sure to have all the information anybody would need.

[heidiiiii]

I have never built one but I have one piece of advice. If THAT is the house you want to build, go for it! Cause it will bug you until you do it.

Lots of ppl on here have built it, so you will have help when you run into a snag. I dont know about wallpapering beforehand or not. Are you planning on electrifying it? Because if you are, you are going to want to build, electrify, and then wallpaper/paint. There might be some areas in the house that you will probably want to get to before the full build too (unless you are 3 inches tall and can fit inside)..LOL

Good luck on your house and we will all be here to cheer you on!

[KathieB]

Well, you've received a lot of encouragement, and they're all right. Follow your bliss, and with all of the help here and at Greenleaf, you'll end up with a house you can be proud of.

On the other hand ... the amount of craft experience you've had and the strength of your patience are both big factors. You might consider building a smaller house as a warm-up. The skills you learn and sharpen will help immensely, and in the process you'll find out for yourself whether you'd be happier papering/painting beforehand or more comfortable building and then decorating.

However you decide to proceed ... good luck with it! You've chosen a majestic home. :o

[mamie]

Hi and welcome :o

[havanaholly]

Also if you begin with a smaller kit and then move right on into the Beacon Hill you'll better understand those of us who have more than one dollhouse (I think I have four downstairs & no place to fit the Magnolia when she's done, so where can I work on my Willowcrest?...).

[beckybell]

I am ordering the Beacon hill kit tonight from joanns fabric.... they have a promo code available... and they seemed to be the most reasonably priced that I could find... Does anyone konw if the beacon hill instructions are available for down load anywhere... I would like to by the supplies that I should have on hand before the kit arrives... any help would be really great!!!

Becky :o

[Kalygirl]

Hello and welcome!

[havanaholly]

I would like to by the supplies that I should have on hand before the kit arrives

Carpenter's wood glue

craft or utility knife

masking tape (at least 1" wide)

clamps

waxed paper

pencil

rags

clamps

steel straight edge/ carpenter's square (to check level)

Anything else can wait until you at least start to do a dry-fit to see what you might want to paint/ paper/ or stain.

[sarahnaylor]

Hi and welcome!!

My first house was the Beacon Hill. I thought the instructions were a bit confusing, but I've always been the type of person to learn hands on. The schematics are a huge help! I would paint as I go along if you want to use lots of different colors. You can build the shell of the house then wallpaper then add you windows. I would start out with the Orchid house. It's a great little house. I have learned so much after doing the Beacon Hill that I wish I would have waited. I think that it looks great, but I would have saved myself a little grief. Whatever you decide to do it will work out! You can always ask for help if you need it. There are a lot of great photos of the Beacon Hill in the gallery.

Good luck!

Sarah

P.S. If you plan to stain the floor, do so before you glue! Even stainable glue is not stainable. I found that out the hard way

The list above is a great start.

[Cuppa-Tea]

I would definitely start with a smaller house, for practice. My first Greenleaf house was the Sugarplum Cottage. It was not complicated, but it still took time and I learned a lot along the way. Such as spreading a thin layer of spackle over the pieces to smooth out the grain of the wood before assembling them. There is a lot of custom work on these houses... making sure everything fits together right and you fill in the grooves with spackle or wood filler. So I would recommend doing an inexpensive house for practice, because then when you do the Beacon Hill it will look that much more "professional" if you know what I mean!

I tend to do the painting and papering after assembly, mainly because I want to cover the seams in the corners after the house is assembled, and because I don't always know ahead of time what I want to do.

But it's a good idea to trace the shape of the wall pieces onto a piece of paper before you glue them so that you have a template for the wallpaper later. And, test fit the house together first before you glue the pieces permanently. Then you can see if there are any places that are hard to reach, like stairwells, which you would want to decorate before assembling.

I apologize if this repeats anything you've already heard! I didn't have time to read the whole thread.

Oh... be sure to test any stain that you want to use on scrap pieces of wood, so that you can see how it's going to look. I made a big mistake once by using a dark walnut stain and it turned the wood practically black!

[chattycathy66]

I'm building the Beacon Hill right now (I call the Beacon Hill my "first dollhouse" because it's the first one I will work on with my daughters, and it's the first one I'll have pictures of. About 15 yrs ago, I built the Heritage by Duracraft) and the best piece of advice I can give is to go slow and be patient. ( I learned that with the Heritage. ) Take the time to prep all your pieces--especially if you plan to stain them....and do lots of reading on these pages! there is so much to learn about the BH here, it's a great help ! Everyone is so great about answering questions, so just ask

Congrats and good luck!

[ilovecats]

Enjoy yourself! Read the instructions, but also really study the pictures. Sometimes when i read the instructions i just get confused, so if i have a picture in my head of how the house is supposed to look, it helps me alot.

I build my houses in different ways each time, so there are so many different ways to tell you what to do. My favorite glue is Titebond II wood glue. I like the regular Titebond, but this seems to be the best wood glue that i have personally used. Everyone has a preference for what they use.

The Beacon Hill can be a bit tricky to built at a couple of points if you are doing it yourself. This is because you only have a certain number of hands to use , the house is large and if you are doing it by yourself just know that when you are putting it together, you only glue up to where the instructions tell you to glue and the house can be tricky to get into square depending on how you've glued your previous joints (try to keep everything as square as you can before moving onto the next step)..I ended up popping my glued areas loose a couple of times to get the alignment right. It's just such a big house and some of the pieces are floppy until you get all the main shell put together. Depending on how fast you are, the glue may dry by the time you need to put on another piece and that is why i had to pop a few pieces loose to square up the house. My house is still a little out of square. This is partly because i had an added problem of warping to my first floor piece. I was thinking that the building process would help straighten this out (it will usually) but since it was the first floor, this wasn't really the case. So I did the best that i could...in the end, i shaved down the height of a few walls on the 2nd floor (because some of the 3rd floor walls were too high by 1/8 inch). Now if you really look at it, i have a "sag" to the third floor. This i just dismissed as part of the aging process, since in my mind, this will be a house that has been around for a number of years :hug: Ah well. Every house has a little something about it! Use lots of masking tape and glue, don't be shy with the glue, you can wipe up the excess. I keep a roll of paper towels nearby...oh and it's fun to pick the wood glue off of your hands and fingers after it's dry

This is a beautiful house. Don't be discouraged by it's size. If you do want instant gratification, build a smaller house first. It gives you building skills and makes you feel good to complete a project. If you think the BH will be your only house, then I say go for it and enjoy the learning process!

When you get to the part of building your staircases, don't install them until you wallpaper or paint the walls they but up against, otherwise it will be a real pain to do it afterward. When you install the staircases you have to manipulate the first floor staircase into its position and removing it would likely cause damage.

[havanaholly]

it's fun to pick the wood glue off of your hands and fingers after it's dry

But contrary to what Andrew says, it tastes nasty! If you're as careful & meticulous with your glue as I am you'll want to wear old clothes you don't care about not being able to wash the glue out of (or paint, or stain, or "whatever")

:groucho:

[kokkie]

Hi, if you really want that house go get it, you can do it, have confidence and you can always ask here for help if you need it, pleas do not settle for something less, you might regret it,

[ilovecats]

But contrary to what Andrew says, it tastes nasty! If you're as careful & meticulous with your glue as I am you'll want to wear old clothes you don't care about not being able to wash the glue out of (or paint, or stain, or "whatever")

:wish:

Ooo, yah it does taste very awful don't ask how i know...no, i wasn't hungry at the time :groucho:

I have a few sets of dollhouse/hobby clothes that have been party to my excess glue use ;)

[beckybell]

OK... I really thought about this and I decided to by a dollhouse called the Willow..... It is smaller... and I hoping that this will become a wonderful hobby for my family...so i don't think I will only build one doll house.. so I will start with the Willow and use it as a learning tool...

Has anyone here built the Willow.... I would really love to see pictures of one finished... and building tips would be great!!

Thanks everyone for all your great advice!!!!!!

Becky

[wenlaine]

Becky, the Beacon Hill was my first dollhouse and it's one I treasure. Of all the houses I've built, it's the only one that remains upstairs in my diningroom. I loved every minute of building it. At that time, I had no idea about this forum so I had no help and only went by the instruction and schematic sheets. It wasn't all that difficult. I put it all together and then did my decorating. The only thing I didn't do was wire it which I may do one day.

But since you've bought the Willow, I thought I would mention that I did the Jefferson which is very very similar in size and layout. So if you need any help, there are pictures in my Gallery. You're going to love this house too.

[havanaholly]

so i don't think I will only build one doll house

Hey, Deb! This one's a keeper, she's figured it out already!

Has anyone here built the Willow

A few members have built or are building the Willow, Becky. I wish I were one of them, it's a pretty house and looks like fun to build. I'm working on the Magnolia and that's one elegant house, and quite straightforward to build. And the stairs bend.

[MiniMadWoman]

If you're as careful & meticulous with your glue as I am you'll want to wear old clothes you don't care about not being able to wash the glue out of (or paint, or stain, or "whatever")

I wear old sweat pants when I'm working on a dollhouse just for this reason . . . I usually end up wiping the glue or paint right onto the pant leg . . . looks hideous, but then I'm not going to the mall with them on!!

. . . hoping that this will become a wonderful hobby for my family...so i don't think I will only build one doll house.

Believe me . . . it won't be . . . this hobby is very addicting!

Good luck with your project, Becky and welcome to the forum!!

[Bill]

Hi, I'm a first timer too. I am just finishing up a Coventry Cottage that I plan on giving to my daughter for her birthday. Buy the house you want to build, but definitely buy a small project to work on first. I learned a lot just building the Coventry and I was not trying to do anything too fancy as I know the house will be played with. Here are some suggestions that I have.

1) Before you apply any type of finish or wood prep assemble the house as much as you can without glue. It will give you an idea of what goes where and what you should stain and what you should paint. Keep in mind that you will need to keep track of the pieces. A piece of blue painters tape that you can write on works well without having to actually mark the piece.

2) Use primer and paints that are intended for minatures. I tried to use some left over wall primer that I had to preprime some pieces and it was too think. It made it so the tabs wouldn't fit into the slots so I had to carve the primer off to make them fit.

3) Go get some real miniature brushes of a variety of sizes. You will need some big brushes for coverage and some really small burshes for touch up.

4) Use wood glue for a good bond and let it dry. This is not a weekend project, it is not a project that you are going to do in a month (unless it is all you do) so let things dry (the same goes for the paint, stain and clear coat).

5) Remember, this is your first doll house and you are doing it for fun! If you make a mistake it is not the end of the world. Just take a step back and fix it. I accidentally pre-painted the attic floor with ceiling paint. By the time I realized my mistake the damage was done. Oh Well, I just put down carpet in the attic instead and my ground floor ended up witha really nice wood ceiling...

If I get some time I will post a picture or two so you can see. THere is a lot of finish work I did not due as I really had no concept of how much work I was in for and I have a hard deadline (birthday comming up). The first words on the instructions did let me know that I might be in for more than I expected...they said "Don't Panic!" Which lead me to think 1st of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and 2nd that this might be more work than I was expecting if they are telling me not to panic...

I hope this helps,

Bill

[LizB]

I have built the Beacon Hill (see my pictures on this post) and I am really glad I picked this one. But having said that - it is very difficult and not for the faint of heart! One of the books I bought said it was one of the most difficult kits to make. The staircase is very hard to fit in. I really did not know anything when I started but I learned an awful lot. I wired the whole house. I put the wallpaper in while putting it together and I wish I had primed the walls like everyone said to do. The wallpaper would not have so many bubbles. I painted the siding before I put it on, same as the shingles. I really should have started on a much smaller house, to sort of practice first.

Which ever one you pick - good luck!

-LizB