Tried to play with the exterior colors a bit more tonight.

Started here:

Thought the green was too dark and the corner trim didn’t work in brown.  Plus the colors didn’t look very Victorian. After some experimenting I ended up with this:

Think it might work, so long as I use the lighter of the two greens on the corner trim. Still not fully committed , though.

Think I’ll sleep on it again.

Good night.

Did a bit of painting today. Painted the outside of the windows different browns and some of the siding green.

Placed them up against the back wall to see.

Took the ‘glass’ out and stained the inside of the windows as well.

Put them all back together and set everything up, including a couple corner trims on each side of the house.

Not sure I like the green color…I’ll sleep on it and see tomorrow.

Good night.

So it turns out the reason the electricity was not working right last time was because I had managed to blow the fuse in the power strip without noticing (or maybe it arrived in the mail with the fuse already blown…what do I know?).

In any case…new fuse and everything works fine now. No more dimming of the lights to the point that you can barely tell they’re on anymore.

So I got back to work wiring up the dollhouse. Even added a bit of solder on all the tiny brass nail connections I had made so they wouldn’t pull out accidentally over time.

And now all the bulbs can be hooked up to the power strip (which will eventually be housed/hidden in the foundations of the house) and the lights can be turned on and off easily.

Looks a bit messy, but all the wires will be covered with outside siding soon and none of the mess will be visible. The only lamp not attached is the upstairs hallway lamp, since I ran out of purple and orange wire tape. But I’ll get some more soon.

So the east side of the house looks like this in the dark.

Not sure if you can see it well in the photo, but the nursery fireplace is also lit up.

The west side needed a bit of work on one of the bathroom fixtures…

But I soon fixed it and all the lights work now.

And in the dark, the rooms really glow.

Tomorrow I’ll finish the nursery windows and try to get some curtains in there so the babies can sleep better at night.

But for now…good night.

New set of photos of the butler’s pantry.

Enjoy.

After putting it off all day (because I was afraid it wouldn’t line up correctly), I finally glued the ceiling on the nursery.

Worked a lot better that I feared it would.

Then I added beams across the top to level off the ceiling.

Started on the electricity for the house….which looks easy but it turned into a headache pretty quickly. The wires have to be threaded around tiny, tiny copper nails (if you click on the photo and use the magnifying glass, you can see them in that little plastic box in front) and for some reason the power strip I bought can’t seem to handle more than three bulbs before the lights dim to almost nothing.

But I got the kitchen, the pantry, the scullery, and most of the bathroom hooked up. I’ll get to the rest tomorrow.

For now, here is the nursery all lit up for the night.

Good night.

Time to take some new photos of the rooms I’ve completed.  I’ve added several new details in each of them, and I’m not fond of the photos I already have.

So today I started with the kitchen. Enjoy!

Started back on the nursery today…

Over the summer I had acquired a few more elements for it: a crib, a rocking horse, and a corner shelf.

And few more books and toys, including this jump rope some child threw over the foot of their bed:

Not far to go before the room is complete.

First I finished gluing on the swan border:

Next I trimmed the ceiling so it fit correctly.

I wanted to add a two-pronged chandelier and attach it through this ceiling medallion, so I needed to cut the middle of the medallion straight (it had a round bump in the middle) and file a hole through it for the wires.

Painted the ‘metal’ parts of the chandelier with metallic paint, so it wouldn’t look so shiny and plastic.

Gave the ceiling three coats of paint (after having painted walls and ceilings in a real-sized house this summer, this felt amazingly quick and simple!) and glued the medallion and lamp on:

So the room will look something like this:

Tomorrow I’ll glue the ceiling on and work on the windows, but for now…good night.

So I’m back in town now and I’m ready to get back to work.

First, though, given that the house is going to be growing in size very soon, I realized I needed to move my workspace out of the TV room and downstairs to the dining room…

…which means if I have friends over for dinner…

…well, they’ll just have to eat in the kitchen.

Brought a bookshelf down to store my paints and supplies…and the toolbox down for my tools.

Piled the extra miniatures on the side table.

Brought the plastic worktable down.

And generally took over the entire room with the project. Luckily, I live alone here, so no one will mind.

I did, however, order acrylic sheets to create a protective box for the dollhouse. Not only will they work as UV filters, so the colors of the paints and wallpapers will not fade as easily over time, but the box will keep my dog, Cider, from any chewing temptations the house might elicit. (Unlike the previous room, the dining room has no doors, so I cannot lock him out while I’m gone.)

It will also serve as protection from dust; I spent a good hour last night dusting the dollhouse thoroughly after my three-month absence.

Last week, I also finished the plans for the second and third floors, so here are the final plans for the house (minus the front porch):

First Floor

Second Floor

Top Floor

Tomorrow I start back on the nursery, but for now… good night.

Back home for a couple days and I had just enough time this afternoon to get involved in the house again.

Needed to make the plans for the rest of the first floor. So I took some paper and laid it in front of the back section of the house.

Placed a lot of furniture in approximately the right places so I could get the proportions correctly.

Then I started drawing in the rooms as I had planned them, adjusting here and there when they didn’t seem the right size or something didn’t fit.

Got the sides and the front of the house measured and cut out the outside walls.

Fiddled with the front measurements and added the octagonal tower base.

And there you are!

It’ll only take up most of the dining table….that’s all.  Oh, and there’s still a porch to add in the front. And this part of the house will be three stories high instead of two.

But for now I have a SketchUp plan of the first floor ready to go.

Going away for a bit longer and then I’ll be back home and I’ll start up where I left off in the nursery.

Till then…be well.

Not to worry…I haven’t given up on my miniature house project.

But, having just bought a ‘real-sized’ house, I’ve been spending the summer painting and sprucing it up…three hours away from my Victorian mini! So not a lot of miniature work being done.

But I’m itching to get back to it when I can in August.

Until then…be well.