Flowers

I finally got the window boxes on the Tea Room filled.

Here is what I have put together.

This is the window box at the front of the
Tea Room

This is the window box at the side of the
Tea Room

The greenery was bits from the dollar store, and the flowers are paper flowers that I purchased from Grandpa's Dollhouse.  They are very pretty.

Why I don't like Greenleaf

I always said I would not purchase a house made by Greenleaf. The main reason is that they use very shabby wood. It's just not good quality, but I really liked the Lily, and bought it fully expecting bad wood. However, with one of the interior window trims it was just not workable. Here you can see two pictures of how bad the wood was.

The wood was literally crumbling as I tried to sand it, and the middle core of the wood was crumbling too....I had to make a decision on what to do about this piece of wood. I decided that it was a lot less stress to just recreate the piece with some basswood strips that I have.

First I used my mitre box to mitre the corners of the wood.

Next step was the glue the pieces together. I used my jig to make sure that the pieces stayed square. This particular window frame was for a double window, so I had to also glue in a middle piece of wood, so I used the window sashes in the frame to help me know exactly where to glue the middle strip. Here's the final result. Looks much nicer than what Greenleaf provided.

Stairs

Well, today I decided to tackle the job of putting the stairs together. There are two sets of stairs in the house, from the first floor to the second floor and the second floor to the third floor. Seems simple enough, BUT...I have been doing some reading online and have read many horror stories about the stairs. Knowing that I can't really proceed until the stairs are in, I can't put it off.....I tried stalling. Noticed there were some gaps here and there and decided to do some spackling. I love the spackle that I have. It's called DryDex and it goes on pink. Then when it's white, it's ready for sanding and painting. I mostly love it because it's pink.........


.........anyway, the stairs. So I started punching out the pieces for the stairs, and of course they are not all on the same sheet.....they are all over the place. I felt like I was on a treasure hunt, I've never been so excited to find a piece of wood, but honestly it's like an Easter egg hunt. Did I mention before how horrible the wood is....well actually most of the wood for the stairs was in good shape, except the risers. They were bad. Here you can see how splintery it is.


Putting the stairs together is time consuming and you have to try to keep it square while doing it. While it was drying I placed it in the house where it should sit. I figure that ought to keep it square enough.


After lots of sanding and gluing and taping and waiting, the first set of stairs are done. This literally took me hours....and it was not even a fraction of how bad I thought it was going to be.


My plan was to start on the second set, but as I was punching out a riser, a splinter of wood hit me in the eye. That kinda killed the mood......until next time.

Construction Begins.....

I've always been a very impatient person. Miniatures is no exception.

So here was the box (very large and heavy), sitting in my dining room just waiting to be opened.


Once open I sorted through 17 sheets of very rough splintery wood. I renumbered the sheets with a black marker because the perforated numbers are very hard to see.



I decided not to follow the instructions as they are. They called for window making and attachment as the first step. I like to do windows last because it makes it easier to wallpaper the interior. I would not suggest everyone do this, but because I have made houses before I just know that for me this is easier.

I decided not to stain the floors in the house. Mainly because the wood on all three floors are clearly different. Staining it would have created different coloured floors and that would be something that would drive me insane!! So I went ahead and sealed all the wood.




Before actual construction I made sure that I had my building permit on site. Don't want to get into trouble with the city. As well, made sure my fire extinguisher was on hand. With all the heat that is being created by all the sanding going on, better safe than sorry. Which brings me to sanding.....and sanding....and sanding.....I have come to the realization that there will be no end to the sanding. Once I think I have it all nice and smooth another splinter pops up. So there comes a point where I have to stop or I'm going to be sanding till there is nothing left.

This is day one of this project and I am already exhausted.....I mean just putting the body together you need to be a 8 armed contortionist.....it was like a giant wooden pretzel. I had to get my mother to help me. There was glue everywhere....even on my arms.....MY ARMS !!!
I thought it was going to take a miracle to put this thing together, when suddenly everything just clicked. All the pieces snapped into place. And it was time to stop for the day. I'm exhausted.

Decided to move

I've been working on my Vermont Farmhouse Jr (which will be referred to as the VFJ for the rest of this post) for 5 years now, and I just can't seem to finish it. I love the way it looks on the outside.....but the inside has been bothering me for some time. Here are stock pictures of the exterior and interior.



See, the outside is very nice, but the inside is so boxy. There are no hallways, the stairs only lead to the second floor. The attic has three rooms but they are not full rooms and there are no doors. All things that really do bother me. How am I, (If I were living in this house) suppose to get to the top floor/attic?? I want my houses to have a bit of realism. This is not real to me. This was great as a beginner house, but I think I need something more.



Then a couple of years ago my husband (before he was my husband) got me a lovely house called the Acorn made by the Little Dollhouse Company. Much like the VFJ made by Real Good Toys, this house is a very well made sturdy house......but......again, like my VFJ lacks realism.

I like that it has a hall/foyer from the front door, but it goes all down hill from there. There are no stairs at all in this house.....so the top floor is useless. The rooms on the first floor are a great size, and I love that, but the top floor/attic is horrible. The roof is so low that there is not much usable space up there. So like my first house. This house remains unfinished.

After much thought and lots of research I decided it was time for a move. I need a house that has everything that I am looking for. A nice foyer, stairs throughout the whole house. Great size rooms and no half attic rooms. Rooms that actually have walls and doors. Is that really too much to ask ?? Finding a dollhouse with all these characteristics on an tiny budget is not that easy. I however, don't give up easily......and days of online searching I found the mini house of my dreams....for now anyway. The Lily by Greenleaf.




While the house layout is a dream for me, the wood used in construction, NOT SO MUCH. I think I got splinters just looking at the 17 sheets of raw crappy wood. Not looking forward to all the sanding that I am going to have to do. I'm hoping that the finished product will make it all worth it.

So far, I've opened the box, checked that all the sheets were there, and closed the box. It's very overwhelming. Anyone who has built a dollhouse can vouch for that, but when it's a Greenleaf house.....the stress level rises.....that being said, I go into this knowing full well that the wood is crap, that it's going to take a lot of love and work to make it look as nice as it does on the box. I will suffer many injuries in the way of splinters and I just need to keep in mind that I knew what I was getting myself into.

Construction starts sometime this weekend.....can't wait to see how it goes. Stay tuned !