More Progress on the North Attic Bedroom

As I last posted, there was a gap between the roof that was connected to the Nursery, and the roof that connected to Anthea's Room.

Today I set about fixing it.

When the two room boxes were pressed together, you could see a gap.

A piece of wood that was knocking into the knee wall seemed to be causing the problem, so I decided to pull it off.

However, even after I had pulled it off, there was still a gap between the two room boxes.

The gap was even more noticable between the roof (I apologize for the blurry image).

From the back of the dollhouse (please ignore the crayon/marker mess, the person I got the boxes from had a child who stored markers in them), the gap between the boxes was still visible. Because of this, I assumed that the piece of wood I pulled off hadn't been causing the entire problem.

Pulling the boxes apart, I saw the piece of wood I had glued onto the roof that was connected to Anthea's room. It was glued on very sloppily - I don't remember the story behind that!

I pulled the piece of wood off, and off came a piece of wallpaper. That was fine because unbelievably, it appeared that the piece of wood had been glued on sideways, causing the roof connecting to the Nursery to be pushed away.

Yes! The boxes meet!

The roof pieces meet up too! There is still a small gap, but I think that is my fault when I glued in the roof. It will be covered by trim anyway. I still have to create the wall that will have the door, and hopefully I will be able to post about that soon! But for now, happy holidays and have a wonderful winter!

Up In The Attic

The attic in Lockwood Manor has an odd configuration: the ceiling isn't large enough for it to be an actual room, so I had always planned on all of the rooms to be playhouses, little hideaways, or perhaps even extra bedrooms if there were too many guests.

For some odd reason, I had an idea to create a tiny bit of a hallway next to the North Attic Bedroom, barely more than an inch wide. While I do not have any photographs of it, I do have two images of the door that led to it. The door and that wall (on the right of the top image) were a placeholder for when I built a better door that actually worked and had hinges.

Yesterday, I decided it was high time to demolish that wall and build the permanent structure.

As seen in this image, the wall extended all of the way to the floor. This was also just a placeholder: when the time came I would add a knee wall.

First, I had to rip out the wall with the fake door so I could demolish the tiny hallway. Ripping out the wall also ripped out some of the wallpaper I had used in the hallway (the reverse of the wallpaper I had used in the North Attic Bedroom). The problem with this was that I didn't know where the wallpaper I had used for the North Attic Bedroom was. It was actually real-life wallpaper, so I couldn't just print some out. Try as I might, I couldn't figure out a way around this, so I put it off.

When I tried to pull off a baseboard that I had attached to the wall, it also pulled off a bit of wallpaper, but this was fine because it would be covered by the knee wall.

Luckily, most of this mess would be covered up by the knee wall.

I built a mockup of sturdy cardboard and wood for the knee wall, and decided I liked it.

That was the space I would lose by adding a knee wall. At first, I thought I could add wiring, but I hate dealing with the electricity, so I left it off.

I was too carried away to take any photos during construction, but that was the result after I had added all of the paneling.

I still had to add the top of the paneling as you can see in this photo.

All done! Except for the wallpaper. This I couldn't figure out until I looked at the wall that I had demolished from the fake door. It still had some wallpaper on it.

I glued it in. I didn't want to risk ripping the wallpaper while pulling it off of the piece of wood, so I left the piece of wood there, which is why it protrudes out a bit. The wallpaper didn't quite reach the top of the wall, but this was fine because I was going to add paneling there anyway.

After I had finished gluing it in, the knee wall looked like that.

The front view. I had finished paneling where the wallpaper didn't reach the top of the wall.

Unfortunately, where I pulled away the wall with the fake door left glue marks. I wanted to cover that up with wood flooring, but a bit of a disaster episode ensued, so I figured I could do it some other time, and added a coat of paint to it. With a carpet on top, you can't even tell the difference.

There is the mockup of the wall!

Unfortunately, there is a gap between the attic that is part of the section with the Nursery and the section with Anthea's room. Hopefully, I can cover this up with trim.

Most of the problem is due to a piece of wood that bumps into the knee wall, so the sections don't sit flush to each other. I will remove the piece of wood, and hopefully the gap will subside.

I also added trim to the top of the wall, which makes it look a lot neater!

A photo shoot of the knee wall ensued. The radio is a placeholder.

The paneling is completely done! There is a little nail in the wall because it was there when the wall was part of the fake door, and unfortunately it's stuck quite tight so it's impossible to remove. You'll just have to play along with me that the knee wall was there all along and was part of the 1925 renovation of the attic :-)

Hopefully I will be back soon with the North Attic Bedroom complete!

George's Room is Coming Along! (Very Slowly)

From my last post, you can see that I wanted to add depth to my dollhouse, but to do that I need four more IKEA drawers. Luckily, my birthday is coming up, so I might just pop that onto my wishlist! In other news, I have been really slowly working on George's Room. Currently he's sleeping in the bathtub, poor kid. I did have some problems with the fireplace - I wish he'd decided he wanted a radiator instead, but George insisted it had to be a fireplace, so I had no choice in the matter. The reason I was having so many troubles with the fireplace was so that the fireplace could fit into the little nook, the walls of the fireplace had to be reasonably low, creating a gab where you could see the wood of the dollhouse through. Of course, this wouldn't do, so I had to compromise and make a sort of grate-y thing. It took me an hour or so to ensure the fit (who knew painting three coffee stirrers could be so tiresome?), which makes me even more amazed that people actually managed to do this in their real-life homes. They must be born with superpowers! I really wish I'd just waited on the parquet floor until some coffee stirrers came my way, but I didn't, so now I'm stuck cutting up tiny pieces of wood. Very, very fiddly, especially when you get to the edges and have to cut a tiny piece of wood even tinier, and it splits in half. Ugh! Luckily, the little grate-y thing that I made fixed the fireplace, so now I just have to insert the wires through a tiny, tiny hole, and glue in the fireplace. Which, I'll frankly admit, I'm scared to do. I really don't want to glue it in wrong! Luckily, the floor is more than halfway finished.

It's come a long way from this:

I could probably finish it this afternoon, if I worked up the enthusiam. Also, I made an Art Deco (sort of) fireplacae fender.

You probably can't really see it very well in the photo, but it's there. The shiny metal sheet is from this dollhouse kit I had, and I cut it up to cover the wood that formed the fender, and glued it. Imagine my surprise when, as I was working on the finishing touches of it, I discovered that the shiny metal sheet was a sticker! How did I not realize that before?? It would have saved me a lot of time! Also, I got a very large stash of coffee stirrers which I was using to finish the very messy edges in my dollhouse. For example, in the attic:

After I added the finishing edges:

Much better, don't you think? I will be back soon with more news on George's Room! Stay tuned!

Planning - always planning!

Currently my dollhouse and I have been separated - as I have been vacationing in Ireland! I've been blessed with beautiful weather here, I think it has only rained about two times, and I've met up with lots of family and had a fantastic time all in all :-) I finished the plan for my dollhouse, and you can see what it looks like. It is duplicated twice to show the front, and the back. As you can see, lots of the rooms are not named, and therefore unfinished. I have put the rooms that are finished in a different type of blue so you can tell which is which :-) Sorry that the image is so tiny, if you click on it it enlarges! :-)

As you can see, there are so many unfinished rooms! So much more space for imagination and creativity! I also forgot to include the unfinished attic space, which consists currently of two finished spaces, including Jeremy's bedroom, who, following the story I have created for my dollhouse, is obsessed with the movie star Lana Turner, hence the numerous photos of her :-)

My dollhouse, although Victorian, is set in 1940, which allows for some modern conviences and an updated kitchen, and electricity. And because all of my favorite movie stars are from the 1930s and 40s, I can include photos of them :-) Also, in other news, I have finished decorating the facade of the servant's entrance.

I'm quite proud of it! As the story goes, the servant's entrance used to be quite spick-and-span in the Victorian times, but as it's the 1940s, the place has grown dilapitated and is now only used for hanging out laundry and putting out the rubbish.

Yes, that's rust holes in the 'metal' poles supporting the washing line! The poles are actually wooden, but I painted them to (hopefully) resemble metal.

Thank you for reading, and have a splendid day!