I have no pictures to post today. I did work on my Gothic house but nothing to really photograph. I glued the walls and floors together and painted some trim. Tomorrow is the Superbowl so I doubt I will get much done.

The lights I ordered from Miniatures.com arrived on Friday. They are a bit big for the house. One will work fine but the other I am not sure about. I may make it work. And then the fireplace embers seem really too large. But once I build the fireplace, I could disguise the size. So I am thinking about this…I have 30 days in which to return or exchange them but I really want to make them work.

I need to call my Gothic house something else. The look will definitely not be Gothic.

I spent some time this morning building a kitchen wall with a door and interior windows. And then a more simple wall for the bathroom upstairs. I know this makes a smaller kitchen and bathroom but the look is more important to me. There will be no room for a tub so there will just be a sink and WC. Maybe I will have a table with a bowl and pitcher for bathing! The kitchen will be a simple country kitchen. I am using ideas that I have seen from other peoples projects that I have been inspired by.

My daughter is trying her hand at selling cards on her Etsy site. Sadly no one seems to be even finding her store. I know it is a competitive area. But if anyone reads my blog, take a look at her work!!

Zenzoa

That is it for today!

My Gothic house is coming along. I spent part of today glueing balsa wood and purchased flooring onto the sub floors of the house. I ran out of wood so have to get more tomorrow.

Back to my 1/24th scale house:
To finish off the entry way, I made an umbrella from paper. I wanted to use thin paper and didn’t have any so I used some printer paper and colored it with a black sharpie. I cut out a circle and also cut out a wedge so there wouldn’t be as much bulk when the umbrella is folded up. To make the paper pliable, I applied some neutral shoe but left a narrow strip un-waxed so that I could glue the cut ends together to make the umbrella shape. I had some heavier gauge wire that I curved one end of to form the handle and then glued the other end into the bottom of the umbrella. I then super-glued the brads at intervals along the inside so that the heads were just above the paper edge. When dry, I carefully folded the paper at each brad and wrapped it around the wire handle. I had to add some extra folds so that the umbrella looks nicely closed! So that is my tutorial for a 1/24th scale umbrella!

First off, I am nearly finished with my 1/24 scale dollhouse. I am adding some final touches and then it will be ready for the show. I did notice this morning that there are no door handles for the front door! How will anyone be able to get into the house?! (Other then to walk around to the open back…). So I am ordering those today. I also made some plants for the kitchen window sill and a shopping bag for the front entry bench. I have some more things I will make during February.

While browsing the web, I came across this Gothic house that I thought would be good for a french style house. I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived within a few days! I thought it would be closer to 1/24th scale but instead it is 3/4 scale. Not a problem but you cannot buy anything in that scale (except for some vintage items). I can make the furniture and will give a go at bathroom fixtures. I can probably get by with some small versions of 1″ scale things.

I couldn’t wait to assemble the house. There are no instructions except for the parts numbered in assembly order. I really had no problem figuring it out and it went together quickly. I am not using all the parts as they won’t fit the picture of the house I want. My inspiration is from a french blog, Un jour a la campagne. Her site so lovely!

The rooms will be pretty small but then it won’t take much to fill them!

I thought that it would be nice for the bunny inhabitant of my half scale house to have a vocation. He is a photographer! I made this ‘antique’ camera from wood, paper and some watch findings. I found a picture of a camera on Google and basically tried to make mine look like it.

Once again I take inspiration from my Pottery Barn catalog! I printed out some black and white photos on photo paper and then peeled of the back to make the photos thinner. Then I carved some tiny clothespins…I made about 2 for every 1 that didn’t break! But I am pleased with the final result. They will hang in the blue bedroom. All part of getting the house ready for the miniature show in March!

Today, I put a some artwork on the bathroom and dressing room walls. I found some pictures in the Ballard Designs catalog, cut them out and laminated them.

I made a clothes hamper from mat board and then glued some cross stitch canvas on it. To achieve the color I was looking for, I used a marker to color it and then watered it down with a paint brush. After drying, it looks like I hoped. The hamper’s main job is to hide some electrical wires!

The kitchen sink still needed faucets so I looked through a package of watch findings and found some that I though looked the part. They are already silver colored so I didn’t need to paint them.

That is it for today!

With the lighting done, I have moved on to finish the bathroom.

To finish the bathroom vanity, I painted a small plastic pot with white spray paint. It serendipitously fit into the hole I had already cut in the vanity top! The pot has a slight rim so it looks like a sit in sink. At least to me! I also stole two faucets from a bathtub I had and they are now on the vanity too.

The pewter towel bar I had also has a fresh coat of silver paint and has been installed next to the vanity.

I thought it would be nice to have the light system set up so that only some of the house lights would be on at a time. Since I wire my houses in a crude, hard wire way, I divided the wires into two groups where they all end up under the house. My DH gave me a couple of very small switches that I installed on the support frame the house sits on. It is only balsa wood so the switches really just sit in the openings I cut out. The stiffness of the wires holds them in place.

So now one switch controls certain lights and the other controls another set and if I turn both on the whole house lights up!

I decided to separate the lights in the dollhouse into two separate switches. That required taking all the wires apart and redoing them. My husband had some small switches which I installed on the support skirting that the dollhouse sits on. Everything works fine and now I can choose to have all the lights on or just some. Next will be to work on a separate Christmas light system for next year.

My other project was to solve a problem that I had with the under cabinet lighting. One of the lights glowed through the wood. I had to redo the housing around the light 4 times to solve the issue. I ended up using electrical tape all around the cavity that the light sat in. To do all this I also had to rip out the upper cabinets which were glued in. But everything turned out reasonably well.

Next up is a fix having to do with the kitchen wall light….(this is almost like dealing with a real house)!!