PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!

[porshiepoo]

Right we're getting ready to start the building of my daughters Pierce dollhouse and we are in a really quandry as to what to put on the floor. Ideas???? What does everyone else use????

We're probably going to decorate as we go as we're assuming it will make things easier but I noticed in another thread someone mentioning sand and bevelling of a staircase in the pierce. Huh! It took this poor sole two days and at a loss of finger skin to get the staircase how they wanted it. I can't find mention of this sanding or bevelling in the instructions I got. Hellllllllllppppppp!!!!

[uppitycats]

What's the panic? Take your time, take a deep breathe, sit back and look at the house a bit, and then it'll come to you, what you want to do. There are lots of flooring options: carpet, tile, bare wood, inlaid wood, wood-printed-on paper (which you can even get free from various internet sites)...or a combination of them.

Yes, I personally take sanding very seriously. I well-sanded my Garfield, which I built from a kit. I now have three already-put-together houses I'm rehabilitating, and none of them have been sanded very well. That's the first thing I tackle with a "new" rehab -- sanding everything, getting rid of as many rough and splintered edges as I can.

For my Garfield, I sanded the sheets that came as flooring for the house -- and sanded them again and again, at least three times. Then with a ruler and sharp pencil, scored the floor (5/8 inches by around 6 inches long) so that it looked like a hardwood floor, then varnished the floors a couple of times (painting the underside, which became ceiling for the floor below).

For Brimble, someone had started laying walnut planking on his lower level, so I finished that with unstained coffee stirrers cut in approximately the same lengths as the walnut planking. Stained those walnut, then gave the whole floor a sanding, a new coat of walnut stain, and then varnise, and that turned out well.

For his upper floor, I found a box of very thin sheets of wood being sold at Lee Valley. It comes in a pizza box sized box, and thre are maybe a dozen different kinds of woods represented there, all in very thin veneer sheets. I took one of those, cut and pieced it around the staircase in his second floor, scored it (like I did for Garfield), laid it in with contact cement (otherwise the veneer is so thin, water-based paint made it curl up), then varnished and stained it.

Some folks here even make tiles, or create their own inlays using different kinds of wood to make light/dark patterns (think "quilt") which look lovely.

It's really your choice, and what kind of effects you're after.

But yes, sanding, smoothing edges, all that comes with working with wood.

[CJEP]

I wouldn't worry about what to do with the floors yet. Just relax. I sand only a little unlike many people here. I also tend to decorate afterwards--usually because I want to wire it for lights, so I need to wallpaper and/or paint afterwards. I find the flooring isn't too hard to do later, so if you don't know what you want to do, don't worry about it yet.

[havanaholly]

Linda, get a grip, dear, or go have a stiff drink!If you don't want to sand & bevel your staircase trim, you con't HAVE to.

If you're planning to electrify your Pierce you'll wantto hold off on decorating until the shell's assembled and you have the wiring where you want it. When you do the "dry-fit" (where you put the house together with masking/ painter's tape instead of glue to check for fit & spot potential problem areas) you can think about & plan wiring and then you can decorate your floors, walls & ceilings. Some people paper directly over the tapewire and some people make templates of walls & floors and apply their treatments to them.

I don't electrify my houses because so far when I've been asked to build one I've been asked not to by the customer. I usually scribe floorboards directly into the plywood whilst the floor pieces are still on the sheet. If I'm going to tile part of the floor for a kitchen or bathroom I simply mask it off until after I'v stained the "floorboards". Then, when the stain is dry I mask that part of the floor and prime the part I'm going to tile. I have also laid wooden floors using split siding strips. I have some of the self-adhesive vinyl "boards" from Greenleaf I want to try in my Magnolia downstairs. I've been using the "tiles" and I like them very much.

Looking at the paneled Pierce staircase, if I were building it I would want to bevel the panel framework by sanding, because I sold want to make it elegant. You make that decision when you get to it, and by then you might have decided on something completely different. You are really not in a race.

[porshiepoo]

I've had a stiff Brandy ...... well, fizzy water really, have taken a deep breath and had another look at the plans.

PANIC!!!!!!!!!!

I know this should all make sense but I have to admit that I really thought this would be a case of glue, slot and off you go. Oops!!! Reality has hit home.

Deep breath again. Right, This is going to be a fantastic project and I'm sooo looking forward to getting started on my dollhouse .......Oops daughters dollhouse.

Hints and tips have been fantastic. Never thought of the lollipop trick (same sort of thing as coffee stirrers over here). So I'm now convincing my daughter she DOES want a wooden floor somewhere. :whistle:

So what do you all use paint wise? Emulsion? Or is that no good? Does it need to be like a satin paint for wood? Or something else?

I'll start posting piccies as soon as we get the foundations started, can't wait! Seems like 'This Old House' with Steve & Norm will come in handy after all. My daughter and I used to love watching that programme and I thjink thats what influenced her in desire to build a dollhouse. Now, any hints and tips on how I influence her into liking what I like???? :o

[nuttiwebgal]

I usually just sand and stain the kit floors and give the a couple coats of polyurethane to seal it and give it a nice shine and be done with it.

the wood in the kits stain up very nice all by themselves....

but if you should want to put down flooring you still can. IMHO put in flooring should be done after painting or papering the walls...dont want to spend all that time on the floors just to have it mucked up.

do please calm down...its not a race and there is no "ONE" way to do anything.

and you CAN do this and have beautiful dollhouse for you and your daughter!

Happy Building

nutti

[uppitycats]

As for paint, many of us use "leftover" paints that we had from various "real life" house projects. I prefer water-based latex myself -- easy to clean up. I use a water-based varnish, too. My husband prefers oil-based varnish, so when he decides to tackle something -- like Brimble's doors -- I let him do them from start to finish, using whatever he wants.

As to the gloss of the paint -- I think that depends again on personal taste. I use semi-gloss mostly, but I did paint Brimble in a tan flat paint, as I wanted the outside to take on the appearance of sandstone.

I'm not sure what the American translation of "emulsion" is, though!

But you're a long way from painting! Foundation first...THEN start thinking about all the rest of it! And yes, the directions ARE deceptive. I especially like the part about "...no tools necessary"...as I have a cabinet-ful of saws, hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, mini-crowbar, etc......:o

[Minis On The Edge]

HAve you looked at the pictures of my blog? I have step by step pictures of me building this house. There is another Lady that has been using the blog (She has been my inspiration to get moving on this cause she is waiting on me for the next step :o) I think the foundation & staircase is the hardest part with this kit. The rest is smooth sailing.

[bmatson]

Okay relax. There is no one way to do anything.

As far as flooring goes, you can sand and stain the wood floors as they are, or you can do the popsicle stick and/or coffee stirrer thing that's been mentioned before. I personally used red oak flooring on my porch, and will probably use that for all 3 halls of my Beacon Hill. I put several (read: at least 10) coats of polyurethane on it and it really brought out the color very nicely. The can said that 3 coats is what is normally used. (Scoff). I used more for 2 reasons a) i'm obsessive, and 2) with each coat, the color kept looking better and better and better.......and I didnt know to stop!

Anyway. When I started my BH, it was my first dollhouse, and it was BIG. I was panicing much the same as you were. But I dove right into it and soon realized that it's just a dollhouse, it's not brain surgery, and that I can put this together and still be alive after doing it and everything. Plus, I learned a LOT right here on this very forum. So I think you'll be fine. Good luck to you!!!

[Peggi]

Another alternative for floor covering that I used in my Lily was "real" wallpaper samples. So see, there are plenty of different ways to dress your floors.

and I used skinny sticks in the Coventry and I used siding strips for the porch on my cabin

I've also used dollhouse carpet in some rooms and I've also just stained the floors on other houses. So play with it and have fun.

[Minis On The Edge]

Peggi, I never knew you used wallpaper flooring!! Wowie!! They look wonderful !

[Peggi]

Thank you Tracy. Remember it was my first try. But for some reason I love the marble look of it.

[uppitycats]

I haven't been through the 15 or so wallpaper sample books I got with my RealGood house, but I bet there are some in there I could use for flooring! I never considered that...but why not? Looks good!

[newt]

there, there, now, is your breathing back to normal? yes? good!

So far as i can tell, emulsion paint is what Yanks call "latex" paint. there is a spiffy online British/American dictionary at http://peak.org that's useful when i'm looking at UK websites and feeling that i'm no longer fluent in "English."

there are lots of possibilities for paint, wallpapers, scrapbook papers and the like.

if you go to the Forum Home, and use the Search function, you can look around and read about what others are doing and what they recommend. reading about various subjects has helped me feel a lot less intimidated by how much i have to learn.

now, believe it or not, it is entirely possible that you will have fun with your project. here's the sitch: a dollhouse project is really cool because you can imagine what sort of floor or wall treatment you'd like for each area, and then try it out. !!and!! you can change it if you don't like it. :yes:

in Wenlaine's post in the "Wood Flooring" thread from about 10 days ago, she notes how one might create a template for the floor for a room and then try the flooring on that. the same approach can be used for the walls. so! if you're not pleased with the look once you've placed it in the room, then you can remove it and try something different.

this will be fine, you will have fun, and a great house. you can even share it with your daughter -- :whistle: if she's really, really good.

[porshiepoo]

Thank you so much for all your replies and tips, it's been extremely helpful.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm turning this into major surgery when it really doesn't need to be and I'm going to panic my daughter too if I'm not careful.

So, we shall just bite the bullet and start the kit either today or tomorrow - yep! We still just stare at it and go 'woooow'.

As for my taste compared to my daughters, well, I'll just have to get my own kit after this one won't I! :whistle:

This site has been a mine of information and I think I can safely say that it's going to be what gets us through the project.

So thanks again to everyone. :yes:

[uppitycats]

Thank you so much for all your replies and tips, it's been extremely helpful.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm turning this into major surgery when it really doesn't need to be and I'm going to panic my daughter too if I'm not careful.

So, we shall just bite the bullet and start the kit either today or tomorrow - yep! We still just stare at it and go 'woooow'.

As for my taste compared to my daughters, well, I'll just have to get my own kit after this one won't I!

This site has been a mine of information and I think I can safely say that it's going to be what gets us through the project.

So thanks again to everyone.

I said this to somebody else already, but it seems to fit here, too: This is supposed to be FUN. When it is no longer FUN, step back from it for awhile, do other FUN stuff, then come back to it. If you and your daughter start snipping at each other about what to do next, step away and do something else, then come back to it. And nothing is "forever"..for the most part. (Although I think the contact cement I used to glue down Brimble's upstairs flooring certainly won't come up any time soon! )

And while you want it to look "perfect"...it may not, and that's OK, too. It's YOUR house (well, your daughter's house...YOURS is the NEXT house!) so put it together in ways that suit you, not anyone else. And it'll turn out just fine in the end.

Somebody here tolkd me this when I started Garfield...I'm just passing it along! :thank_you:

[havanaholly]

Emulsion?

Is the same as

water-based latex

I usually just sand and stain the kit floors and give the a couple coats of polyurethane to seal it and give it a nice shine and be done with it.

the wood in the kits stain up very nice all by themselves

I use a steel straightedge and the back of a utility knife to scribe floorboards directly onto the plywood floor pieces before I even remove them from the sheets, I use an awl to punch nailholes in the ends of the boards and stain them before removing the floors. I used split siding strips upstairs and the Greenleaf self-adhesive vinyl floorboards downstairs in the Magnolia I'm building now.

floor covering that I used in my Lily was "real" wallpaper

I've used that in my atrium roombox and the Glencroft's kitchen.

As has been said, this is NOT brain surgery! Neither is it rocket science. I do recommend "trying out" ideas on scraps first, not everything seems to work for everyone the same. I also find I get into the zone faster sometimes if I start out playing with ideas and then work them onto the house. Once you begin taping parts together for your "dry-fit" you'll see the house begin to take shape and it will hopefully get better.