Moving, progress, and dry-fits.

It has been a long time with out a post.  In June I moved apartments.  Old place was getting ready to tear out all the apartments and redo them from the studs out.  I did not want to wait until they gave me 60 days notice, so I found a new place and I love it!  However, this meant not even thinking about the dollhouse for about two months, to the point that I forgot I had the images for this post uploaded and ready to go.  

A little color progress happened in the living room.  I decided on a buttery yellow, because the house will be decorated roughly late 1920's or very very early 1930's.  This shade of yellow is all over architectural drawings and interior decorating magazines of that era.  I also have fabric for the sofa I am planning for this room, it picks up this same shade in some of it's accent bits.

The stairs are again dry-fitted into the opening so I can more easily see where things go. I have not made a decision on whether there will be closet space under the stairs. It is a look I like, but completely makes it impossible to have a formal dining table. There just isn't enough space for that and  living room furniture both. I am also reconsidering the french doors I got for the right hand wall.  They would lead out to the porch/patio area, but they take up so much wall space, and the idea of cutting into that siding and wall is kind of scary.  I guess we will see 

It appears I have a J rather interested in my progress.  as you can see by the smile on her face in the window, she is very amused by my being startled.  :)

Next, I wanted to do more dry fitting. I was excited to really get an idea of how it might end up.  I started with the kitchen.  The stove I made has been painted in a peachy yellow  and white (again, a popular combination for these in era...).  I almost want to raise the window up to the height of the back of the sink.  That would give me more options with arranging the kitchen.  

The china hutch is standing in for a baker's cabinet (also known as a Hoosier cabinet) that I bought as a kit from https://www.bentleyhouseminis.com .  I have yet to assemble it.  When I do, I will paint it to coordinate with the stove (somehow, but not necessarily match the paint scheme by being so much covered in yellow).  I like the small table set for in here, it fits without taking up too much space.  There will also eventually be an ice box in the room.  It came with the house kit, and has not been assembled. I have not made up my mind as to whether it will match the other free-standing furniture or if I will leave it with a wood finish.  Both were done commonly.

Next up we have the bathroom!  Yes, indeed, the bath surround will be gold.  Yes, I may in fact be insane.  :)  No, the walls will not stay white.  I have a purple stripe paper to go on the walls.  Not sure if this room gets three foot (inch) white wainscoting or not.  I still need to fill and sand the shelf before painting it white and adding a backing. I think I will also paint the toilet seat white. That wood tone reads too close to the gold, and this is not a gold-toilet-having kind of place.

And finally, I mocked up the bedroom. The stairs don't have a railing yet, and I may put a wing-back chair in place of this dining chair, for a comfy reading area.  I am still debating making the window on the right into a door, for access to the porch balcony. I think it would be a very nice touch.  I may also make a wardrobe to go to the right of the bed.  Having places to hang your nice clothes and jackets is important.

And that is the progress I made before the move.  Hot weather also prevented me from starting up again recently... Now that we are back down to the 80 degree range, I think I can start up again.  I have to decide on door and window options before I can begin laying the floors.  We will find out what I decide when you join us next time, for another thrilling adventure on The House That Jays Built!

In which our heros color correct the floors, paint the ceiling, and preview furniture...

Hello again, I am a few weeks behind on posting.  The purple sub-floor has been fixed!

Here you see the hand of my construction foreman and co-decorator. He did a fantastic job of making sure the brown covered the purple. And, unlike me, he did not get any paint on the walls.

Teamwork makes the dream work!

Job's done! Even something as simple as repainting the floor can be fun.  I admit the change is rather striking. The living room is the color as it is dry.  Now I can refocus on the original plan.

In the mean time I have sanded my kitchen walls and applied scrapbook paper that is green with small white flowers on it.   I am going for a 1920's-30's theme in general.  I have a feeling there will be bubbling on the wall on the right, it didn't seem to stick very well.  I also had to patch over a couple places on the window wall. The glue was too wet, and soaked the paper, so while I was smoothing the paper down, I ended up with a couple tears at the edges.

Pictures will be forthcoming of the lovely buttercup yellow and creme stove I made based on the tutorial from the Bently House Minis tutorial on Youtube.  Here is a preview of it in progress...

Painting also happened on the ceilings.  Between cutting the hole for the stairs bigger, me smudging on accident and discoloration from age, they needed to be done. Living room and kitchen got a flat white in a matte finish, and for the bedroom and bathroom, I mixed in some pearlescent to the white paint I used in the downstairs. I flipped the house upside down to make getting to the ceiling easier, and to avoid dripping paint on the sub-floors

First floor is dry in the above picture and fresh wet paint on  the upstairs.  It is not this shiny dry.

Here is the shape I chose for the bathtub arch. Below you can see I sealed the edges with wood filler to help strengthen and stiffen it, as well as smooth it after sanding.

And finally, here is the bed I made from a tutorial using clothespins and craft sticks. I am really pleased with the way it came out.  It is the equivalent of a queen size.   This now goes in with all the furniture that J made and/or collected with the house.

Until next time, dear readers... remember to be kind!

And we continue onward

We begin this weeks adventure a little farther than where we left off.  This is the house after a couple hours scrubbing up the old glue.  It finally feels like it is all up, practically a blank slate.  

First thing I did after taking this image was to paint the bare spots with white acrylic paint.  I had help with this from an adventurous young man, of seven years, who learned to pull the paintbrush rather than try pushing it. Together we painted the floor and walls of the attic, then he helped me by sanding rough spots on the underside of the dormer while I was sanding another section of the house. We also confirmed that sandpaper is rough like a brick. :)

I decided that since some of the paper in the bedroom had gotten wet and a little torn, that I should put up a high wainscoting.  I chose a dark teal coloration that I blended myself.  This was applied to corrugated paper, which stands in pretty well for bead board.

After a first coat of paint I wanted to make sure I liked it against the  wallpaper.  I really do. Also evident in this image (barely), is the area where I widened the opening for the stairs.  I ordered a new set as I didn't recall seeing any in the box, though J remembers putting them at least partially together.

First, let me start by saying it was dark outside by this point...   

I picked up what I thought was a dark brown paint, to base-coat under the areas where I might be laying down individual floorboards, so gaps in the wood would be less appartent.  Having watched other bloggers do so, I decided I should too...

That doesn't look very brown to me, let me try the flash...

!!!  Yep, I have deep purple underlayment. And I splotched it onto the wall. Attempts to wipe that up failed utterly and spread the paint more. Good thing I had already planned on covering the walls 2/3 of the way up.  

Below, the wainscoting is installed and the windows very roughly cut out to get a feel for it. I do plan on painting over the purple in a dark brown.

Below is my second or third dry fit of the stairs.  I have not yet decided on stain and/or paint for the staircase.  I do think I want a runner down the center of the stairs, but need to pick living room colors and find something I like that complements both the living room and bedroom.

And the view from downstairs.  Looking at this, I just realized I did not paint that wall the stairs are against.  It will get a base coat of white when I next pull the house out and work on it.

Do not be alarmed! The gold is intentional, and really has a purpose, I promise. 

It is going to be an arched alcove area for the tub. It might even end up with a Moroccan shape to the arch.  I have seen these in architectural drawings from the 1920's and 1930's.  Granted, They aren't usually gilded, but I wanted something that would really throw around the light and be eye catching.  

The lady of the house deserves a touch of glamour after spending all day cleaning and cooking.  I am still not sure if my idea is genius or insane.  Stay tuned to find out!

I also have picked up the french doors for downstairs.  Since I am wrapping the porch around this side, I figured it might be nice to have them here at the back of the living room.

I have to show off the very thoughtful and lovely gift that J gave me.  (Platonic Life-mates totally rule!)  This sewing machine will likely end up in the attic space, after I rejigger the roof-line and decide on the deco up there.

So, there you have it for now.  I spent part of last weekend working on a bed.  I found an adorable idea on Pinterest that involved taking clothes pins apart and using them for the bedposts.  Unfortunately I did not snap a shot of it before putting everything away for the evening.

Stay tuned for more adventures!

In which demolition happens...

Though all of these are posted today, this project has been ongoing for a few weeks.  I am working on it as I can. One of the first things I did was remove the roof, so I could plot out how I might make it look more like this, but not as deep on top. Sort of half way between the original and the roof line below.

Last week I began on removing the floors, starting with the living room.  It was both easier and more difficult than I anticipated.  Under the wood flooring sheet was the original attempt at a paper parquet.  Decades ago, when J installed the first floor, she and her mother agreed that it just wasn't quite right, and didn't really look like wood.  Luckily J's mom found the wood floors and things progressed from there.

I removed the floor as carefully as I could, using a metal putty knife to slide below and gently lift. Here are some images of that process.

It did not come up as prettily as it did in some of the blogs I have been reading for research/reference/fun.

Luckily it came up in sheets for the most part.  It had been glued down to a paper backing when it was manufactured. J then glued this down to the floor.  It came up with very little damage to the backing paper, so I should be able to reuse them in the way I hope to. I think I have decided to leave the kitchen floor as it is.  A big part of me wants to leave some of the original influence.

This was a sticky process. Once I got the floor up we gently sprayed down the area with water and began to scrub off the glue. The second floor was made more difficult by the fact that firstly, there was not parquet flooring underneath. Secondarily, J learned as she went. There was way more glue on the second floor.

This process took a few hours. I'd peel up a floor, spray it down, scrub and scrape, and let it sit while I began on the next one. The bathroom was the worst of the lot for me. Not only was the glue job more through, we jokingly said that she must have used a bottle and a half on the floor of the bathroom alone.

By the time I finished for the evening, I was so very sticky, my tools were sticky, a scrubber was ruined, and sticky.  I had only gotten up about 2/3 of the glue from the upper floors, but it was time to be done.  You might also notice that some of the wallpaper has been removed, J worked on the downstairs while I was removing the bathroom floor. Next time I will update with pictures of the hopefully glue-free and clean floors.