Plan B Takes Shape

 Well, we will file that previous post either in File 13 (the wastebasket) or File for Future reference. The Wood Craft veneer is not flat; it tends to have ripples here and there, which really did not flatten out as I thought they would  when I glued them in place. The real problem with the floor, however, occurred when I realized that as I glued the planks in place, they were not level. So I tore the whole mess out and began again. I had glued the to flooring to card stock which was also glued to the floor so, I had to used my laundry softer/water solution to dissolved it and scrape out the card stock without damaging the wallpaper. 

Plan B: I purchased flooring from Hobby Lobby. And here's how that went.

With the first floor installation, I used Aleene's Tacky glue to secure my card stock "sub" floor that would protect the copper tape.

I covered the copper tape with Scotch tape to protect it, leaving a small opening where the the connections for the wire that will connect to the upper floor and where I will connect the only floor lamp in the living room. 

You can see the mess. 

And I began a new. 

This time to adhere the card stock to the floor, I used my favorite double sided tape found in the scrapbook section at Hobby Lobby. It will hold the paper secure and will remove easily should that ever happen.

The new flooring comes from Hobby Lobby, too. I've used it before. It comes adhered to a backing so I was able to use scissors to cut the shape of the floor from a template. Looks great. Fits perfectly.

I used a walnut stain to give the floor a really dark, rich look. . .  

. . .which dissolved the glue that held the boards to the backing, so now I have to install them one by one. I did a dry fit--several times, remembering to leave a 1 inch gap in the living room to wire in the lamp. In the end, I've left 2 center boards that won't be glue in so that if I ever have to repair the connection, I can. More on that later. 

  

I followed the same process in the kitchen, glued in each plank one at a time with tacky glue and pressing each plank next to the pervious one for a tight fit. For some reason the planks are not quite even at the bottom, but at this point I am not going to worry about that because I will use a trim along the edge. 

With the wall supports as they are, planks had to be sculpted to fit. This wood cuts easily with an X-action blade. Next time I will stain the sheet of plants before I cut them and then cut each separate plank as I go to fit instead trimming to fit the template. 

The floorboards will hopefully cover up any gaps. 

Here, then, is the completed living room floor. Look closely at the bottom where you will find spliced blanks. I left 3 boards unglued that will be held in place by the center baseboard and the edge trim.

I did something similar to this in my first house, the remodel which I call the Blue Farmhouse Now Pink. I don't usually run tape wire across the main floor; instead, I run it up the walls, but in this house I wallpapered the wall panels before I installed them (Won't do that again), so for my one lamp in the living room I had to create the electrical connection and hide it in the floor. In my experience over the years with renovations and new builds, the copper tape never wears out or fails, but what does fail are the connections in the tape wire. 

So FIY stay tuned for this I will be soldering my connections instead of using brads. Won't that be interesting--well I hope so. 

  

The base board will come out, and the little splices will be easily removed. Then I got the brilliant idea to move them to the top where they won't be so easily spotted. Now I will be able glue the trim at the bottom in place for tight, secure fit. 

 

And only you know my secret.

The same technique will be used in the front entry. 

The copper tape runs across the kitchen floor and securely glued in place with the electric connection on the outside. I've used card stock as a base floor which will be taped in place with access to the spot where the wire leading to upstairs will be connected. While the sub flooring will be taped down as the wood flooring, the tile piece will be left unattached. The stairs will not be glued into place permanently either and will hold the tile in place. But more one that later. 

  

Finally, after a lot of struggles, the first floor is almost complete. I have to paint and install crown moulding and it will be done. The second floor will not be as tedious for it is only 3 main pieces with two interior walls and straight lines, no bay windows to fuss with. It does have 3 windows that have to be built, painted, and installed. So stay with me. 

Thanks so much for visiting. 

Ann

Not for the Faint of Heart

 Dollhousing, (my new word for what I do in my spare time), sometimes really isn't for the faint of heart especially if you are a DYI-er. It is for the adventurous and risk takers; for those who desire to kit bash and build everything from scratch; for those who want try new things, be innovated and creative. 

I'be probably written this before: beginners benefit from building a kit and following the directions faithfully, for there are some really great kits, especially the newer laser cut kits with pieces that are precision cut and will fit perfectly. Older kits, not so much as it is with my current build, the Newbury, which I am saying now will be my last large project--oh! wait! My daughter has the San Franciscan kit, daring me to continue. I'll get back to you on that. 

Today's post will focus on flooring for the Newbury, a rather challenging project with its bay windows on the first floor.

To begin: there are so many options for dollhouse wood flooring ranging from printable flooring to commercially printed flooring to wood products. You can buy individual planks for a variety of online shops. You can purchase sheets of pre-cut planks--you have so many options. 

But what if you a risk taking adventurous DIY-er as I have been there are options, too. Some use craft sticks--I have, with fair results Or Hobby Lobby planks on a sheet. 

I began my dollhouse adventure by googling "how" and found plethora bloggers and YouTubers who taught me how to do many things on my own to create my own special unique dollhouses. The last house, the Manchester Country Home is filled with mostly with handmade, one of kind, not so perfectly engineered or made pieces. Here's the tutorial on how I made the flooring for this house using my Cricut Maker to cut Cricut veneer. https://annsdollhousedreams.blogspot.com/search?q=cricut+flooring. The Design Space creation is available free on Cricut's Design Space.

With the Newbury, I have made some pieces, but am not holding myself to that strict rule; however, I did decide to make my own flooring, so I ordered packages (2 sheets per pack) of walnut veneer from Cricut. Cut it on the Cricut and didn't have enough. I was going to buy more from Cricut, but it is now $18.00 +shipping for one pack, so I looked for options.

I searched WoodCraft's website and ordered their 12x12 veneer walnut 3 to a pack for $11 + shipping. 

The Cricut veneer is a better quality, actually. The Wood Craft veneer is a bit rippley; that is to say that it does not lie flat, but I think once I glue it in place and weight it down, the planks will dry flat.

See. This is the thing with DIY-ing: you do take risks when you go rogue and do something new. Just sayin'.

Instead of cutting this veneer out on my Cricut which does lead to a a bit of waste around the edges and takes time to lay out the cuts in Design Space, required the purple mat and deep blade with 4 passes--, I decided to cut this on my old Martha Stewart cutting board and guess what! Perfection. My original Cricut pattern has 1/4" planks, so I line up the left edge with the 1/4' line and cut away. So much easier and no waste.

I can easily vary the length of the planks, too. 

With the wood planks cut and ready to install, I am testing water based varnish. Purchased at Hobby Lobby, I originally bought the small glossy 2 oz bottle, then bought the only varnish the store had, a satin varnish. Did my test strips and realized that I really like the glossy for a nice sheen to the floor. I ordered the 8 oz glossy from Walmart, store pickup. I think $13. 😬

Which brings me another point: Is DIY more costly or less? 

 

The gloss varnish will give a deeper richer look to the wood, especially with multiple coats. I will varnish the floor after it is installed. Some will stain and varnish individual strips, but to me that is work intensive. The nice thing about this veneer is that it does not requite staining, just several coats of varnish. I don't even sand between coats.  

I've not photographed each time I've tested laying out the planks, but I began by making templates with the plan to glue the planks to the template; however, I realized that when I reinserted my card stock template, I had  to bend it to get into place properly around those windows, so I knew that a wooden floor wouldn't to be as pliable as the paper template. So I made a new template.

I need a barrier between the wood planks and the wood floor because tape wire will run across the floor, so I made new barrier template out of brown card stock that I will glue the flooring to.

DIY-ers have to be patient. While I am ready to install the flooring, I have to wait for my electrical supplies to arrive. I ordered the transformer from my favorite supplier CR2s way back in July. I love this company and the products that I'll be using. I've watched his Youtube videos which are so good, but my order was met with a screen that informed his customers that he and his twin were celebrating their 80th birthdays with a cruse (17 family members!) Happy Birthday!  and orders wouldn't be processed until Aug. 9. It's okay, for there is plenty of other things to do. 

Next time we meet, I'll have the electrical tape installed underneath a beautiful floor. 

Thanks for dropping by. If you are visiting from Facebook post, say hello in the moments. 

Best Regards,

Ann

 

Paper Source

Over the years since I wallpapered my first house, I think I've done 7 houses, so I have my wall covering system well in place, which I've written about with each house. I've always sourced my papers from Itsy Bisty Minis.com for excellent quality, great selection with well coordinated collections, and fine service. The company also has some matching fabrics, but after doing so many houses, I needed a different wallpaper source. 

For the Manchester Country Home, I used a combination of digital downland PDFs from Etsy shops and scrapbook paper. I purchase my paper from Hobby Lobby and Michaels sometimes in the 12x12 paper packs for coordinated prints and plain sheets. I always try to buy acid and lignin free papers, a scrapbooking tip that I learning for scrapbooking. Of course I pay attention to size of print, trying to keep patterns in the scale that I am working with. If you want textured wallpapers you will find those as well, nice for ceilings. 

For the Newbury, I've purchased digital download papers and scrapbook paper in the kitchen. You could also search for the digital printable craft papers that are offered on Esty, for there are some really beautiful patterns. So here is the pattern that I chose for the Newberry, but you can see that I had to do some editing to the correct size of print suitable for the Newbury. Some printers or computer apps will allow users to edit images for printing, but mine won't. So I googled how to customize dollhouse wallpaper size and found this great tutorial on YouTube with a tutorial on how to use CANVA to customize dollhouse wallpaper. It is very well done; CANVA is free and easy to use. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHWPN2N--_k

To begin, I apologize for the photo quality for it really doesn't represent true color of this digital printout. 

Having said that, I print on good quality photographic paper. For the living room walls, I used the matte paper; for one wall in the kitchen, I used glossy photo paper. If you are a thrifter, check your local thrift shop for office and craft supplies. You'd be surprised what you find. I found an entire unopened pack of photo paper, for one drawback is that photo paper is very expensive and you have to buy the large box of far too many sheets for one project. Another drawback is that you can print only letter sized (8.5 x 11). Some take their purchased digital PDFs to a print shop for a fine quality print on good quality paper. 

This photo show the difference in color depending on which paper you use. Printing your own wallpaper turns out to be rather tricky.

Another thing to look for is matching patterns when paper has to be seamed. This paper was impossible to match the pattern, but it is random enough that it isn't to noticeable. If you look really really close you might see where images were edited to fit together on CANVA-- again not noticeable once on the wall. 

  

Image color will change if you change paper, so make sure that you have enough of photo paper to complete the project and a bit extra incase you have to reprint. The same goes for scrapbook paper--have some extra pages for emergencies. 

One final note: photo paper is heavier, making it nice to work with. It won't wrinkle like some of the thinner wallpaper are inclined to do.

So here are some alternatives to sourcing wallpapers for you miniature houses. There are lot of possibilities

So glad you dropped by. 

Ann

 

Perseverance (Really?)

I’ve been away from the minis for quite some time. Other things have just required my attention, and to be honest, I lost my mini mojo with this house because assembling it has had so many problems, yet in order to finish this house, I must preserver. 

As a reminder, this the Real Good Toys Newberry, is such a romantic little cottage that one would think that it would be an easy project with just the tow floors. NOT. Now don’t get me wrong, I love RGT kits. They are so well designed and easily assembled, but not this 1990s kit with a first floor that actually is quite a challenge to assemble with so many working pieces that have to be glued together and with each. Nor was it a company original. RGT acquire the rights after the original company shutdown.

 As I searched Pinterest and googled for examples of how others had assembled and decorated this little cottage, I found only 3 example of finished house, one done by the famous Robin Cary who tweaked the original kit. Occasionally one will pop up eBay. I found this one on Facebook Market Place 

 So I was pretty much on my own. After painting all the wall pieces, I began by wallpapering and installing windows on each of the 8 panel--probably not the best way to go. 

When it came time to glue the free standing wall panels to the main floor base, there were two major problems: little surface to attach  mini clamps and no way to keep panels from falling over as I assembled them. I didn't take many photos of this process simply because I was too involved in getting the pieces to attach to each other as well as to the base floor.

Let me briefly summarize what happened next: Once I had all the pieces glued to the base floor, I noticed that the side pieces that would be the living room wall on one end and the kitchen wall on the other didn't line up with the edge of the base. Bummer. And I had measured and marked so carefully. Guess not. At first I thought that I could live with that crookedness but then I realized that the interior surfaces would be crooked. 

Finally I decided to unglue all of the wall panels and start again. Using my embossing heat gun, I was able to soften the Gorilla Wood Glue enough to release it. I measured, repositioned, used little pincher clamps to help keep pieces in line where I could and finally glued it together. The photos show how the walls attach and stand in place. Next the first time around I did not use the clamps to help secure the walls in place; instead I relied weight to press the pieces into place. To undo my mess, I used the heat gun. Goo Gone by the way does not dissolve or soften glue. 

  

The second time around, I used my mini clamps to clamp pieces where I could, which really helped.

 

The first floor is now securely in place with walls that line up.  In future posts you will see the second major problem that occurs when the ceiling/second floor is added, but for now let's make some window treatments.

As I search for minis on a variety of mini shopping sites, I get frustrated because I can't find exactly what I want and prices are so high these days. I've alway been a DIY-er, making many of my own things inspired by all the mini bloggers who are true craftsmen-women-people. So, of course, I make my own curtains. I went through my 18" doll dress making phase some time ago and purchased some beautiful antique lace that I would use on the doll dresses, but I'm not doing that now, so I talked myself into using this wonderful antique lace to make curtains for this cursed house.

Supplies

• Lace or fabric, newly purchased or from your stash

• Spray starch to stiffen and stabilize, especially to make folds

• Fabric Glue--short cut to sewing edges. 

• Craft Sticks to make the wooden valance. Tongue depressor for larger, wider valances; popsicle sticks for narrow valances.

• 1/4th" wood trim for the sides of the valances--or something similar

• Double sided sticky tape. I've gone to this to attach so many things instead of glue for a number of reasons. This tape is scrapbook mounting tape which I like because it comes in a couple of widths. The red will peel off, leaving a clear, sticky tape.

I begin by starching my pieces to give them body. I use a pressing cloth--and old handkerchief--so that iron does not sit directly on the delicate fabric and the pressing cloth will absorb some of the excess starch.

I am using my mini Cricut heat press. Love it. Recommend it for mini making. It does not get too hot, holds its temperature, is small, making it easy to maneuver. I use seamstress pins to help keep folds in place, and for many materials finger pressing them into shape works, too.

The side seams are pressed into place and held securely with a dab of fabric glue. 

Clear tape is attached to the inside of the valance to hold the lace panel in place and the lace panel is pressed into place. How easy is that!

The wood valances are cut length to fit the window, using scrap wood trim for the sides and painted, stained, or upholstered before adding the curtain.

The kitchen windows were even easier to make. I wanted transparent window shades that in real life would roll up and down, so I searched my paper cache` and found this dotted vellum scrap. Just enough to make 3 window covering. Cut it to size. Attached it to the valance made from the popsicle sticks and made the lacy trim-look by cutting edges from square paper dollies that a friend had given me. Fabric lace scraps would work, too. 

Now that the walls are securely in place for the first floor, it's time think about flooring. The base floor is sturdy 1/4" plywood with a pleasing wood grain and I got to thinking, I wonder if I could just stain it. Using the ceiling side of the second door, did the sample test. I used one very light pine and one darker oak. Seems that the wood absorbed them the same, so I chose the light pine stain to finish the floor. 

I will print on muslin or printable fabric my rugs that I borrowed in a google search--not recommended if you plan to sell mini rugs, but since this just for me and I don't intend to profit off images that I have personally created, then I feel okay about borrowing from others. The area rug could be a little larger, but my printer will only print stand size, but I think this will give the rustic look that I like. 

So tell me please if you like the idea of using this as the floor, instead of making a planked floor. I've ordered my Circuit dark walnut veneer and will cut the planks on my Maker II and glue them directly to floor instead of card stock as I have done in the past, but with the bay windows and awkward angles, the floor will be a challenge. I've cut some text planks but I'm not sure that I want to do that.

What do you think? Stain the current floor to create a rustic, well used wood floor covered with a pretty area rug or go to the work to do a plank floor?

I've sanded the floor and it really does have nice character. You be the judge.

Instead of finishing the house and rooms, I get lost in creating the furniture for the rooms. Instead of building from scratch, I decided to use up some of my stash kits, starting with this HOM chair kit. I love how the chairs turned out. I am getting better at upholstering from watching true mini artists work.

  
I did create this hall tree, using a Shackman hall tree from one my other houses as a pattern. It sill needs painted and mirror, but it turned out nicely. Once again using from wood scraps. 

I am really going to love this house once it is finished, but at the moment it is a challenge. If I just stain the floor, the first floor will be done, but without electrical wiring, which will have to run along the floor. I can make my own battery powered  lamps. My post Shedding Light shows how I make my battery powered lamps. Or I could just buy battery lighting--costly as it is.

In addition to using kits to make minis, I am also buying bare or unfinished furniture pieces mostly from Miniature Crush and Miniatures.com (which by now you know is run by Miniature Crush, blending 2 favorite mini suppliers 💖).

I think that is about all I have today. There will be more to come. I do miss blogging, which really is a lot of work, and it seems many miniaturists have turned Social Media to share their work, but I love to write and share more than just "how to", for mini making is a journey, and adventure and storytelling makes it even more engaging.

Give me your thoughts on flooring. Speaking of Trials and Tribulations! Visit this post to see my last flooring project for the Manchester. 

So glad you stopped by. Look Ann's Dollhouse Dreams on Instagram

Blessings and Peace,

Ann