Primrose interior

This is the current state of the interior. It’s always tempting to me to start putting in furniture before the building work is done. In this case it did help me make decisions, for example I divided the kitchen area with different wallpaper from the living room.

This was my first time doing dollhouse wallpaper and it was a bit tricky but I love the way it looks. Here’s my tip: trace the pieces of your house before assembly then you can use this as a template for wallpapering. Looking forward to seeing it with the trim added.

For this house I decided to paint the “hardwood” floors. One of my other changes to this kit was to narrow the top floor to increase the light in the house and make it easier to arrange furniture downstairs. And then I can add a little ladder for access. I hope you are enjoying seeing the tiny house in progress! 

If you visit my Instagram @tinyhandmadedolls you can click on the tag #tinyhandmadedollsdollhouse to see all my dollhouse related posts including the still in progress Glencroft!

Details

I've been doing various odds and ends on the house, but not really finishing anything. I keep doing little details like putting logs into the wood box when I should be getting the shell completed.

I need to touch up the stairs before I put that outer wall up, and that's the next step before doing the roof and other additions. The stairs had some primer and paint spilled on them - as I've already said I should have added them in later - and after sanding that off I need to add a fresh coat of polyeurethane. I'm waiting for a warmer day when I can air out the room afterwards.

So I think I'm kind of stalled a bit! I've also spent a lot of time on bits of furniture that aren't done yet. Although I did finally sand, prime and paint the living room floor.

I also bought some baseboard trim and thought I would try that out. But I realized I would need to add the door trim first, and the instructions say to add the door hinges before the trim. Which means getting the doors ready and figuring out the hinges. So I just tried out the baseboard on one of the plain walls. I love how it looks!

Adding the mitred corners is a bit trickier but I found a good little saw at a local hobby shop. I wasn't sure about going in as it seemed to be mostly boat, airplane and car kits, but they had lots of handy tools and the man I talked to had helpful tips and used to work on dollhouse furniture himself.

So that's the update for now, I really am going to finish the shell someday, but it could take a while!

Downstairs floors

I've been working on the downstairs floors but the kitchen slowed me down. I wasn't sure what kind of flooring to put in there and didn't want to just have the same hardwood flooring. Also I didn't want to buy fake sheets of tiling.

In the end I had an inspiration and I think it's working out. I'm making subway shaped tiles from the same batch of popsicle sticks. It's time consuming, but I think it will be worth it. So they're going to go on in a brick design. Then later I'll prime and paint them white to look like tiles. I'm not sure about the grout but I suspect I can just let the paint fill the gaps.

The "tiles" aren't attached yet but I wanted to see if I'd like the way they'd look. Then I just kept putting them in place as I was cutting. I figure when it comes time to glue they'll be all ready to go. The nice thing about doing them from the same popsicle sticks is that the kitchen floor is the same thickness as the living room floor.

At the same time I've been working on some House of Miniatures kits. These are dollhouse furniture kits from the 70s and 80s. They are really nice quality and I've been enjoying assembling the little pieces of furniture. I have a few of them, so when some of the pieces are done I'll be sure to post them!

Popsicle stick floors

While my house doesn't have a roof I thought I would do the flooring. I'm not sure if this is the right order to do things in, but it's worked out so far. Except I wish I hadn't attached the stair treads yet.

I've been doing some filling and sanding to touch up gaps and cracks here and there and the dust is all over the stairs now. Then I stained the floors and some stain got on the risers. Then I carefully covered the treads with painters tape and touched up the risers and now there's paint on the treads that leaked under the tape! Now I'm just leaving them and will try sanding them later and adding another coat of polyurethane.

It's things like this that make me wonder why I'm doing this when there's so many other things I should/could be working on. But I will say that working on my house is usually very relaxing!

floor after sanding

Anyway, so back to the floor. I decided the most affordable and nicest way would be to use popsicle sticks. Most dollar stores have them, I bought two big bags for just $1.25 each. I trimmed the rounded corners off with a pruning tool, glued them down and then sanded the surface until it was nice and smooth. A regular popsicle stick is like having a wide plank floor, but you can get narrower craft sticks with straight ends at places like Michael's. I saw a bag of them there on the weekend for around $5. 

Here's a little strip of popsicle stick that I cut to go between rooms in the doorway:

Cutting the sticks lengthwise is pretty easy, just go over them a few times with an exacto knife and metal ruler.

 floor after staining

I've read that you should make a template of the floor then attach your flooring to that then attach it to your house. I guess it would be easier to work on a flat piece outside of the house but I didn't have any trouble. Although as I mentioned the stain did make a mess. But I think that was because I used a rag to apply it. For more control I would use a little foam brush or even a cotton swab for corners. (Another reason to attach your flooring to a cardboard template is so that you can take it out later and also so you can run wiring underneath.)

Speaking of the staining... Well, I regret that. It was pretty smelly and I had to open the window for a long time in the middle of a cold Canadian winter. And in the end I thought the colour was too high contrast with the white walls, clashed with the wood stain on the furniture and seemed dark and heavy. I didn't like it at all so I just ignored the house for a while.

painted floors upstairs

Then I decided to paint the floors - I love that country look. So this is how the upstairs floors look now and I'm happy with them. It will look even nicer once I add baseboards, and the wood furniture looks great. The little mirror over the fireplace is from the antique mall in St. Jacobs. I love that place!