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I have now reached the point in the dollhouse instructions where it says, "Now complete the exterior painting." I think this is a funny instruction since it has barely even had me start the external painting.
Once the walls and floors were in it was time for gable walls. That was interesting since they have very little contact with the house and nothing to hold them up until the roof goes on.
That's all taken care of now because the roof is on!
Did the title trick you into thinking you would see knitting? Yeah... No. If you look closely to the following pics you might see some stash or something in the background though.
I have been knitting a little, but mostly I've been building. You see, when I was a kid I got a pretty pink Dollhouse for Christmas. I LOVED that dollhouse. It was the most beautifully perfect little house. So now I have decided to build a dollhouse for my Girlies.
I bought a Real Good Toys brand dollhouse kit at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon. You can't go wrong with that. The house comes in a big flat box with some almost good enough to get you there instructions. I've been working on gluing the shell of the house together up in the loft where hopefully the girlies won't see it. I have to glue a piece and then leave it alone for 20 minutes while the wood glue dries and then do it again with another piece.
I started by assembling the foundation, which I did wrong because the instructions were not clear and I didn't think it through well enough. Once that was done I painted the wrap around porch on the first and second floors of the house. I'm thinking the house is going to be white.
Oh wait, before I assembled I had to label all the tons of pieces. See me being all wasteful with the sticky notes? Organization isn't my strong suit so I had to work hard to make sure I get this right.
After all of the labeling, foundation building, and porch painting, it was time for putting up the first wall. The wall pictured below is called the "Gable Front" and is the wall that will have the bay window in the future. I put this wall up incorrectly as well but thankfully was able to pull it apart without too much damage and reinstall. It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if the instructions would be a little more specific.
One wall leads to another and soon I was putting on the second floor. The house will be two full floors and a third large attic floor. It was putting on the second floor that made me realize I had messed up that very first wall. Now that I have the third floor drying upstairs I am hoping that up to this point everything is right. I guess I won't know for sure until I do the next few steps.
The instructions tell you that all you really need to get things positioned correctly when you glue is some tape and some wait. I have to tell you, in case you might every want to build a dollhouse, that I don't think I could do it without clamps. You can see them in a few of the pics. The MDF the house is made of is heavy, but not THAT heavy.
The most important things I have learned so far...
Don't take the instructions too seriously.
Have a good cup of coffee on hand.
Make sure your faithful assistant only helps when you need help. (see my assistant, Bella cat, below)
I voted and I hope all of you will too.
Now for some Halloween goblins.
Bitty was an "80s Diva" for Halloween and loved her "fashion" costume with a deep and abiding passion.
Buggy was Padme from Star Wars 3. She's a little Star Wars fanatic.
Don't they look great? Our neighborhood was so fun for Halloween. One of Bug's friends from school has a huge haunted house in their front yard and people drive from miles around to trick or treat their street (the street behind ours) and go through their little setup. They said they had over 700 people come through. We also had family over for Halloween which made it that much better. Best Halloween in years.
