Thank goodness I found, and joined, an online dollhouse building community! The members there recommend doing a "dry fit" of all the parts in each stage of the building process before you do any gluing. Good thing I listened. These houses don't exactly snap together. Tabs have to be whittled down and lined up perfectly for everything to fit.
There were several times during the dry fit that I was very, very, glad that I was only using tape to hold things together. Some of the pieces had to be reversed, and others arranged differently than I had expected.
Everything is quite square right now, but that's because all the pieces are fitted together. When I'm doing the actual gluing I'll have to do it one piece at a time and if I don't get each join perfectly square it could mean the pieces that come later won't fit together.
This is a LOT harder than I thought it would be!
Oh.....and in case you haven't noticed? Petunia is trying to get your attention. . . . . . .
She's modelling her brand new, hand knit, cashmere dress.
9 comments:
I noticed Petunia's dress right away... and it looks great!
The house looks like it's going to be a good size for your incoming RealPuki. :)
hi woven flame
i just popped over from den of angels to check out your blog. the house is looking good so far. i helped a group of kids build one several years ago and know how much work it is!
i also added your blog to the links on mine. hope that's ok?
Thanks Christine, and Kristo
Yes Cailyn, always okay by me to include links back here.
I have built 3 dollhouses of various sizes and all were of the 1/8" plywood and all had tab & slots to guide you and all had problems with the tab & slots fitting properly! It's very time consuming and expensive! If it's any consolation - the smaller houses are much easier. I have the Garfield house, that remains incomplete. Mainly due to lack of space to build and because of cost of supplies! I decided to go with Les Chinoiseries wallpapers from Spain - 1st mistake! They're so expensive and the glue didn't set right so I have bubbles in my wallpapers in various areas that I don't know how to fix. I papered prior to putting my walls together so this wouldn't happen and to make papering easier.
But, keep your head up. It's very difficult for beginners like us to get these houses to cooperate but you will be happy with your finished piece for sure!
Petunia's dress is great. And she's not complaining about the house!
~DanceCat
The house looks like it's coming together nicely. Can't wait to see it all done.
I am jealous of Petunia's cashemere dress, I wish I had one in my size!
The dollhouse was given to me DanceCat, but yeah, I'm finding that the cost of the supplies to build it does add up. I'm going a less expensive route though, using free printable miniature wallpaper from online and scrapbooking paper that looks like wood for the flooring. I hope I don't regret that in the end.
Consder yourself lucky!!!
The Castle I'm building (at the dry-build stage myself) isn't a slot-together kit so there are no handy tabs to make sure everythign is in the right place.
Looking forward to seeing what you do with this cute little property.
Teddy
I'm looking forward to seeing the house come together, and to seeing your RealPuki when she arrives too! Looking great so far, and you've got such a sweet little helper :)
teddy and mighella, the house has progressed a little further now that I've recovered from a bout of the flu. I've got the basic pieces glued together and the flooring down. Now to figure out what to do with the wallpaper. Eeep. I think this is the part that scares me the most.
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