Snow Day Equals Play Day!

 With a combination of cutting and prying I was finally able to get the dreaded zebra felt up. A round of sanding with the palm sander made it smooth enough to work with.

 Next up was the bathroom. Here it is without the walls so you can see that I decorated it and added the essentials like a towel and toilet paper - even though once the walls are installed no one will ever see anything but a glimpse of the bathroom. I'm just going to have to pretend that there's a tub or shower in there, too. ;-)

 Here it is with the walls installed.

This is all you can see now. I'm still glad I made an actual bathroom, though.

Hopefully I will have more to share later today. I'm doing laundry, too, so I can play guilt-free, lol.
I love snow days!

Fun with beads

 The upper hallway got a pretty two tiered chandelier. The mini people are gonna be banging their heads all the time but I love how delicate it looks.

 The bathroom also got a pretty little chandelier for over the tub. I think I want one now, too. :-)

Have a wonderful day!

Really Finished This Time

 I found a problem with the light fixture over the table (the tack that I used as a ceiling mount was poking through the upper floor) so I had to take it down to fix the problem. While it was down I decided to make it black to tie into the kitchen decor better. I also added a spacer bead to keep the tack from going all the way through the ceiling. I had to take the pot rack and light fixture over the island down to get to the back so I gave them a coat of black, too. The 'embossed' detail on the rack shows much more clearly with the solid black finish. Be sure to poke the photos so you can see the details.

 I changed the candle tray to a smaller one. That way the ottoman can still be used for feet, lol. My favorite thing on the ottoman, though, is the baby name lists and pen. There's a baby name book on the side table. The doll I ordered from HBS is the Houseworks Joy. She's pregnant. The little details like these are what makes a dollhouse feel lived in.

The bathroom got a small piece of art for the wall. I think there will be a shelf on the right wall over the tub. Where else will the shampoo and such go? ;-)

Have a blessed day, my friends!

A Very Enlightening Afternoon

 At least in the mini world - although none of them are working lights. I reworked the bedroom chandelier and I am much happier with it. The four arms are spaced the way I want them and the swags of beads sparkle beautifully when the light hits them.

I actually made the bathroom sconces when I first made the chandelier but forgot to post a photo. These were made with various jewelry and scrapbook findings and beads.

 The revamped console and end table are not lights but that's coming later in this post. I gave both pieces a more worn and rustic finish, leaving the tops of each in the original wood finish. I'm especially happy with the console. It's a much nicer looking piece now.

 The beautiful potted roses were made by my friend, Brenda. The worn finish of the pot is perfect for this room. I also rearranged again. I'm still working to find just the right layout. This may be the one.

 The living room light fixture was made from an odd piece of something that my son found in our driveway. I like the egg basket effect of the wire mesh. The bottom loops, with a little help, fold out just a bit to give it a floral feel.

Once the front door is on, this room is nearly finished. I want some sort of coffee table but I don't know just what yet.

At some point I really have to address the outside of this house. I'm closer to knowing what I want anyway. At least I am making progress. ;-)

We have our first victim to the nasty stomach bug going around here. My poor daughter (and I, as caregiver) spent a horrible night sleeping on the bathroom floor. If we have another victim, it will be me. Fingers crossed that we won't pass it around.

Hoping you have a blessed (and much healthier) weekend wherever you are.

A day for details

 The bathroom is closer to finished. At least it has most of the essentials. I added toilet paper - a standing dispenser and a spare roll on the tank. The tub faucet is finally in place, too. Rugs, mirror, candle, and a new lid for the bath salts finishes today's work in this room.

 A piece of country styled art for the living room and a rug that will lay flat once there's a finished floor in here.

 The kitchen got a huge ivy plant that hides the upper cabinet join and a pitcher of flowers for the top of the fridge. There's also a new rug for in front of the sink....

 ....and a kitchen clock showing that it is, indeed, lunch time.

I've done nothing to the upper hall or any of the doors. I'm probably going to finish most of the interior work before even starting the exterior. I'm working on this project in very topsy turvy manner but I am having fun. :-)

I am loving this house!

 The kitchen still needs some finishing details but it's mostly finished. I want to add a yellow gingham cushion to the window seat, some rugs, and plants and collectibles on top of the cabinets. I need an opinion please - I'm thinking there's plenty of room for an island since everything is fairly small in scale. What do you think?

 A trio of rooster plates to the left and a tray over the bay. The valances are cut from scrapbook paper.

 The rooster pepper grinder on the stove and the matching cutting board hanging over the sink are Reutter Porcelain pieces. I'd forgotten that I had them but they were in Then Again Antiques. Who knew that it's as much fun to shop in a mini antique shop as in the 1:1 ones. :-D

The bathroom needs a rug or two, curtains or shades, and a mirror over the sink. I need light fixtures for the whole house and the tub still needs plumbing. Adding the windows and the trim around the tile added so much to the look.

The granddaughters will be here tonight for the weekend so there won't be any mini progress this weekend. Next week is my last before I go back to work after summer break. I don't think I will finish but I should make some big progress. Stay tuned!

Sometimes a dollhouse has other plans

...than the ones you have. This time it was the bathroom. It doesn't look anything like the original idea I had. I like this so much better. The first project was to get that wall between the hall and bathroom in. Then I could get to the fun part. I really didn't know what I would use the toile scrapbook paper for when I purchased it. I think it looks great in the bathroom. The blue towels help to carry some color over from the master bedroom. I ended up painting the outside of the tub because it reflected all the patterns in the room. I really like the black. The tub still needs plumbing and I need to finish the windows, trim out the rest of the wall tiles, and glue the stone privacy wall in place.

 The kitchen wallpaper and flooring are done. Once the bay window is finished I can put up the chair rail on the window and hutch walls. I finished the upper cabinets, complete with the range hood. That's another project I'm happy with. I had thought of doing a hammered copper hood but the sheet metal was not cooperating. The small cabinet over the sink and the range hood are both made from the top of a hutch that looks just like the plate shelf. I cut away the bottom shelf on the sink side and closed in the top to make a cabinet with doors. I left the back on the range side to help form the frame work for the hood.

The walllpaper is finished in the master bedroom, too. I just have to figure out what I want to do with the floor here and in the living room. I'm glad this is a fairly busy print because I had to do a lot of patching to have enough paper to cover the tall back wall.

Today was productive in the dollhouse and I got some needed chores done in my 1:1 house. Life is good!

A bedroom and a bathroom

This is one of the boarder's rooms. I got the shelf, tables, and bench from a round robin swap box. I made the bed from scratch to match. I peeled a few stickers off the bench to make the bed match and then antiqued everything. The bench cushion matches the bedspread.
This room turned out really well. The medicine cabinet, wall shelf and rug came with the house. The toilet is one of those bright orange ones I got free at a garage sale. I painted it with enamel paint that you bake to set. The sink cabinet is the bottom of a wood stove and the sink is a contact lense package. The bathtub was cut from a Spam can.

I have to accessorize both rooms but I got a good start on the main pieces today.

Look what I found!

Most of my readers know by now that I like to make as much as possible for my dollhouses. While I have made bathroom fixtures from scratch (successfully!) they are not my favorite thing to make. The thought of making them 1/2 as big as I'm used to was rather scary, lol. Yesterday, while looking through the HBS catalog, I suddenly remembered this 1:24 scale set. It was with my mom's dollhouse when I got it although her house is 1:16 scale (and had the appropriately sized bathroom fixtures, too.) These little things were packed away in a box in my craft room - and I knew just where to find them (amazing all in itself!) I want to make a toilet lid and I need to make a mini vanity with sink. Those things are much easier than making the whole set of fixtures from scratch, though. The cream color will work well with the blues I'm considering for the house. I'm getting excited about this project. I hope my fingers don't suddenly become all thumbs once I start working in the smaller scale, lol.

Bathroom fixtures

I already had a tub for the dollhouse so I've been looking for an inexpensive toilet. I knew it wouldn't be difficult to make some sort of sink/vanity combo. I looked at Dollar Tree where I've found bathroom sets before to no avail. So, in desperation, I designed my own. The part that had me stumped was making a seat with a lid that opened.Yesterday I finished a bottle of liquid dish detergent and there was my mini toilet seat, lol. The bowl is a small wooden egg cup style communion cup. The tank is made with miscellaneous wood bits. The sink and vanity are in a bookcase. I removed the top shelves, glued in a mirror and cut small rounded shelves from craft sticks. The faucet is a screw hook, the sink is a lid. It is all very sturdy and "playable."

Real life has been keeping me busy...

...but I found some time to make some things for my dollhouse bathroom today. The photo shows a hair dryer and curling iron. I also made deodorant, a razor, toothbrush, toothpaste and a hair brush today.

I spent some time on a nautical swap for Small World today, too. I can't post that photo for a long time, though. I'm just glad I was finally able to come up with a couple of ideas. The theme had me stumped for awhile.

I made a couple of minis after all!

This wine rack is an experiment. I'm not sure if it is gonna be the final one but it isn't a bad first try. :-) The bathroom is now finished, I think. Today I added the soap dish by the sink, the hamper under the window and the red shelf to the right of the window. The hamper is just a film canister that's been cut down a bit shorter and then wrapped with jewelry cording to look like wicker. The shelf is the shelf that comes with the Real Life Miniatures kitchen kit. I had to make it narrower to fit the space but it works well for holding all of those bathroom essentials. I still have room to add more later, too.

Mini curtains

Now that the outside of the house is pretty much finished, I can spend some more time on the really fun stuff - the decorating. As I work on this house I am getting an idea for who the owner is. I think she's a single lady, in her late twenties, who loves frilly feminine things but is not afraid to work for them. She's done most of the remodelling work on her house and has restored many of the furniture pieces.

The bathroom now has a lace trimmed Roman shade, towel bars, and toilet paper holder. There are still plenty more things that can go in here but it's a start. The bedroom has pretty billowy white curtains with a ruffled valance and the nightstand has an embroidered doily.

I really like the kitchen curtains. (Thanks for another great tutorial, Casey.) They match the upholstered chairs. The curtains are not crooked, btw. Unfortunately, the border slopes upward a bit on the left. I made a few adjustments to the pleats after I took the picture and it doesn't look quite so obvious now.

Got some more done today

My friends from Small World tease me about how quickly I work when I start a new project. I get a bit single minded once I start something and can't wait to get it all finished. I made a lot of progress on the Brookfield today. I'm not bashing the kit at all so it's going very quickly. I really need to decide what I am doing with the exterior. I have some ideas but I'm just not sure yet.

I love the living room! I need to build the staircase and trim the windows, etc. but it's coming along very nicely.

I think there's enough room in the kitchen for the cabinets along the left wall, the appliances on the right wall and the dining table in front of the windows. I haven't decided if I'm leaving the walls as they are right now or if I want to stipple some darker and lighter shades of olive over the top of the paper.

I think the bedroom is very elegant. I'm going to use the dresser from Brenda and pretend the owner of the house set up her still life there for painting. I plan to use the bed kit that came with the house. I'll stain it to match Brenda's dresser and dress it up somehow. I'm still thinking about what to do with this floor, too. The wood has a fairly deep gouge that goes the whole length of it so I don't want to just paint or stain it.

There's not quite enough room on either side of the mirror for both sconces so I'm going to use one over the mirror and the other over the tub. I'll put the crystal chandelier in the bedroom. I really like the way the bath and bedrooms coordinate. The marble floor in here is a wallpaper sample.

Wallpaper preview

I've printed off all of the papers and sealed them and thought you all might like to see a preview.


The living room walls have a subtle cream and beige stripe and I think I'm going to make a rug from the real sized wallpaper sample shown. It has all of the colors that will be throughout the house and I need to have some red in the living room.

The border for the bathroom is white magnolias on a red background. I'm also planning to use this paper, the border and a red background floral in the bedroom to tie everything together. The floor in here is also a real size wallpaper sample. It's a dark olive marble with burgandy red running through it.

I have a fruit border for the kitchen so that Katie's pineapple dishes will fit in.

The kitchen kit came today but I don't want to get started on the cabinets until the house is built (and it hasn't come yet). I don't know if I will have to make alterations to make things fit.

I am making progress but now I really have to work on some new things for my etsy shop. Back to work...

What a difference a little paint can make!

I spent a little time last night on some of the lights I've been making for the new dollhouse. The little metal connector doodads I found for the bathroom sconces are really cool but I added some red glass paint to the shade area and I really like it. Now they look like red glass shades. I even glued clear glass bead "bulbs" inside the sconces so they are good to go. :0)

I also added some paint to the living room chandelier - I painted the bead candles cream and the ivory bead at the top of the chandelier, gold. I'm much happier with it now.