Unhinged!

Back of house with cladding completed to main house
This week saw more progress on the house. In order to clad the entire house both the front doors needed to be attached. I started this week by cladding the back wall. The cladding was relatively easy to use as it comes with a pre cut rebate so that each piece sits perfectly on the next. It is easily cut also with my super dollhouse scissors.
 

Can you see the little hinges?
As you can see from my title for this weeks post, we had a few issues with the hinges. At first we thought that we could use a 30cm piano hinge. After placing and attaching it to the front of the house we found we had a problem. The door seemed to drop badly out of alignment and had a bit of a wobble. Probably not a problem except we thought if it has a wobble now....how wobbly would it be with cladding and doors and windows...EEKKKK... time to try another hinge.
After a trip to the hardware we found 3 semi industrial hinges per door. After measuring..thinking an measuring again we put them in. Who would have thought that a small hinge would be so much more stable than a giant one.

As you can see the cladding has various  colours. Which doesn't matter as I plan to paint it anyway.

Another shot of the hinges. We had to put a small rebate in the tower so that it sat snugly against the main house. The cladding will cover it so on this side you won't even see the door hinges.

Side shot.

Tower roof being glued. Dewalt power tools again being used for their original purpose...to put some weight on it.

Another side on shot.

I'm pretty pleased with the process so far...I unfortunately think though that I definitely suffer from "Mini-itis" as soon as I complete a step...I'm thinking about at least the next ten steps I'd like to do.

I'm sure I'm not the only one suffering from this condition. I'd love to hear about your projects that you have become obsessed with.

IndyPoppy

A Mini Mini!

 Hello everybody,
This week saw a little more completed on the Victorian House. The front is almost up to the point that I can start to clad it. Again we had a few issues to deal with as more pieces were found to be missing.

My next picture shows what windows that were included in the kit. So many windows to paint...at least they are made so that you can take the "glass" out first.

I also finally decided on the fireplaces for the house. As I was so happy with the result of my purchase from Phoenix that I bought these from them also. I  think they will work well, but I was a little disappointed that one got bent in the mail... seriously you have got to wonder if there are elephants jumping on any mailbox.

I'm now stuck on what surround to use...eeek so much to choose from..

 My next photo is of one of my (well not really mine....but my boyfriends) new mini model. My Mum knows how much my boyfriend is into Mini's so when she went to the UK she came back with this. At first glance I had thought...well its super cute...lots of detail...let's get it out of the box! But no, alas my boyfriend says it has to stay in its box! After lots of pleading, he said I could get the tools out...but everything else had to stay in "mint condition".

Mum then went on to say that it happened to be in a dollhouse shop. Interesting I thought...then on the box...there was the magic number.....it's 1/12th.....a Dollhouse sized Mini!

 It has lots of teeny working details....the door handles work etc etc.

Anyway...I wish I could get it out of the box....I'm now thinking it needs its own garage to be housed in. Perhaps if I make one my boyfriend might be persuaded to release it from captivity!

Does anyone else know someone who likes to keep things in original condition or are you like me...that you feel the need for it to be played with...complete with "brmmm brmmm" sound effects?

Beep Beep....IndyPoppy

Internal Walls Are in...well almost all.

 Hello Everybody...
Well we have had another busy weekend with lots of work completed in the Victorian Dollhouse. This week we focused on the internal walls. Many of them had already been pre cut. (You may remember in a previous post that I mentioned that the main parts of the house are from a Ross's Treasure House kit.
The first picture shows the main walls in the original house. There is a 3 small rooms upstairs, with a landing. Downstairs has 3 small rooms also.

This picture shows the basement extension. The smallest room (in the middle) isn't a room at all but will have the basement staircase installed. (You can see this staircase to nowhere at the bottom of the post!)

The tower basement now has two smallish rooms as well. I'm thinking of making the front one the laundry complete with a Copper.  (My Grandmar's house had a copper...that had multiple uses...from washing to cooking)

 This picture shows the doors that I chose to use for the basement. I decided to use plainer doors down stairs. (I actually prefer these to the ones upstairs!)

The tape has been a must have when putting the walls in. The tape has been helping to hold pieces in place. I was amazed to see how much movement can occur. You think you have it sorted, you walk away and then suddenly your wall has moved.

The house with basement stairs to nowhere. Some of the walls I won't put in until I have wall papered. I'm glad I didn't just go glueing in things as quick as possible. There is no way that I could have decorated the bathroom or any of the other tiny rooms without leaving the walls exposed.

My last picture today is of a seasonal visitor to my backyard. This is a male King Parrot. We have up to ten of these birds visit everyday. They have trained us well. They land either on our gutter or on a small table that we have on our deck and squark. Their favourite treat is sunflowers, though we often give them a wild bird mix. One even tried to land on my car parked in the garage this week in search of food. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeding them treats in my street...they probably go from house to house. The female birds arn't nearly as pretty as the males being mostly green.

Have a great week everybody.
IndyPoppy

Basement Continued and a Thank you.

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for their kind comments on the last post. It was a very hard post to write and I appreciated everyones kind words about Buckley.

 This week has seen some more progress on the victorian house with the second part of the basement started. It has been a fiddly process but I'm happy with it. The tower will have a basement that has two rooms and will be a separate addition to the house. This enables me to pull it out to see the internal rooms.

The right side bay window is beginning to come together also.

 This dormer window was one of the easiest pieces to fit. I wish the same could be said for the right side attic window. It proved to be quite painful!

 Photo of internal bay window. This cutout came with the kit. I think its a cute detail as the original plans have a plain square cutout.

This is a photo of my choice of basement windows. They were super cheap at A$4 for 13!  They seem to be the perfect size also.

 Finally I would like to show you the pictures of the lovely gifts I received. I entered a giveaway at  http://meritannukkis.blogspot.com.es and won this adorable tree. The pictures do not do it justice!

I also won all the items in the next two photos. The beading is wonderful. Merita, thank you for the wonderful gifts.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying the weather. We have had our first few days of Spring which has been marvellous.

Enjoy your week
IndyPoppy