Fixing the drunken flowerbox

Floral moss, plastic flowers and quick-set glue. Hopefully, the crooked flowerbox is no longer obvious:

Oops

Forgot this picture of the curtains from the inside:

Day 21 -- Finished (How'd *that* happen?)

Finishing touches included gluing a little mirror with a butterfly sticker over the gable window:

Gluing on a doorknob:

Where do I put the tiny keys?:

Interior doorknob:

Constructing a pelmet for the windows (card stock, paper, craft sticks):

Finished pelmet:

Gluing lace to pelmet:

Exterior view of hung curtain:

Judy told me about and sold me a miracle tool for cutting (mitered), and, wow, does it ever:

So it was easy to cut the side stripes to finish the outside:

(The porch rails are *not* crooked).

And it's done!

Now for decorating the interior.... (a.k.a., the saga continues)

Day 20 -- Still Adding Finishing Touches

Remarkably many photos for remarkably little work.

The front of the house with all but the side trims glued on:

Copied and framed some artwork (my mother and her father on her wedding day, me as a little girl, Mom as a young woman, a crossstitched monarch butterfly):

Problem. There is a base for the floor which gets glued under the door. But it doesn't fit! I put the door in as high as I could, but there's not enough clearance. Solution? (1) Ferget about it (2) let Mike shave it. I'm thinking (1).

Glued on the side gingerbread. There is very little holding this on. I couldn't tape it to the shingles without taking some shingle dye off, so I'm worried about tomorrow when I take the tape off. Mike may have to get out his trusty little hammer and start nailing:

Glued the stringer onto the stairs and the stairs onto the house:

The other side's gingerbread:

Oops. Need to paint that blip on the side of the gingerbread (both ends):

From a distance it looks pretty good:

Close-up? Not so much. I have a drunken flower box which needs to come off and get repositioned:

Of course, the big decision is still pending. Do I feel comfortable enough with my construction that this dollhouse will stand up to the wear and tear of four little girls? Of course, if I don't give it to them, that means I keep it for myself, which may make Mike wonder about whether or not I've entered some kind of second childhood. I suppose it depends on how much better I am at building a second one.

Things I've learned

(1) Identify every piece.

(2) Dry fit everything before installing anything.

(3) Decide on a complete color scheme -- paint and paper -- *before* beginning.

(4) Get a pencil and mark *every* surface with the color to be painted.

(5) Put a tarp on the table, not newspaper.

(6) Check to see if there's a pdf of instructions from the manufacturer and compare it to the instructions that come with the model.

(7) Write out detailed instructions for myself of every step to follow.

(8) Ask Mike to review my instructions and make (inevitable) suggestions for doing it better.

(9) Ask Mike for help frequently *before* proceeding to do something wrong.

(10) Design some kind of rack for holding pieces to be painted.

(11) Prime everything to be painted.

(12) Keep it simple.

Day 19 -- More help from Mike

I found more glue and finished the interior wallpaper, glued in the partition downstairs and put in the windows:

I tried to put in the door but got confused -- do I put it in from the inside or the outside? The instruction manual was less than helpful, as all it said was, "Install the door." But an email to Judy at the dollhouse store (and with help again from Mike), problem solved.

Meanwhile, I glued on the shutters and window boxes for the downstairs windows:

Then the Miracle Man showed up with his mighty Dremel and trimmed the shingles even with the sides of the house:

Next time, I'n not cutting the shingles before gluing them on. Not when Mike has a dremel that shapes them up so easily.

Day 19 -- "I've got a tool for that"

The plan for today was to at least finish the downstairs wallpaper. Because my previous attempt at cutting a template for the staircase wall had resulted in a trip back to the hobby store to buy more paper, I asked Mike if he had a better measuring device for real precision. He gave me the use of a carpenter's ruler. He was explaining how to use it on something other than the dollhouse, but I got confused, which led him to demonstrate on the actual wall to be measured, watching me as I did it. And (gently -- very, very gently) -- pointing out better ways to measure. Happy, I went and cut a template, took it to the house to check and realized I had cut a divot out down instead of up for the stair at the top of the wall.

Which led me to the depressing realization that Mike must have married me for my looks instead of my brain, which, although not as sharp as it once was has still faired much better than my looks.

Chagrined, I mentioned this to him and he responded, "I have a tool for that, too." Lots of them:

Again, under his careful tutelage, I measured a template. As I was about to cut, he said he found it a good thing at this point to mark out the lines I wouldn't be cutting:

Clever boy.

So I cut the template, tried it out for size and prepared to cut the actual wallpaper. Mike saw this and said, "I've found that it's more actuate to measure the piece to be cut again, rather than use the template to draw cutting lines." A nonbeliever, I marked the lines from the template onto the paper (backwards, until he pointed this out) and then measured. Hmm... He was right. The dots are from the template, the lines from measuring:

Then the gluing -- a perfect fit!

Unfortunately, at this point I ran out of glue. I cut the remaining pieces for the back wall of the living room and the side and back wall for the kitchen and now wait for a trip to the store for more glue. Once these pieces are in place, I can set in the stairs, windows and door, glue on the shutters and door trim and affix curtains.

W00t! Time to start picking out the next model.