When I was in my early teens I built ship models (the Cutty Sark and a Chinese junk) and electronic kits (an amplifier for my aunt's A&W Root Beer drive-in restaurant in Caro, MI). Life went on, children happened and my construction projects were usually around home improvement or other crafty pursuits. In 2007, Susan & I got together and in the process of cleaning out her stuff at her ex's and preparing for a move to San Diego, I stumbled upon her dollhouse kit. She received the kit from her parents when she graduated from college--the first time--in 1983. It was a large, lovely victorian (a "Beacon Hill" by
Greenleaf Dollhouses). It had, since then, been languishing in a storage closet waiting for the right person to come along to build it. That right person was ME! As soon as I saw the booklet on electrifying it, I was ready! She said, "you can't start it until after we move" which was fine since I remember the mess the Cutty Sark was in after a move! So, in October, 2007, we moved to San Diego and I proceeded to get to work.
I opened the box, took inventory and discovered that I was missing sheet #27 (of 27 sheets of luan plywood). Since I needed the foundation support from sheet #27, I was a little worried. With a little Googling, I found that the Greenleaf company had a website with a contact email address. I queried whether they might still have #27 from the Beacon Hill kicking around after all these years and they responded that they still made that dollhouse and would happily, and at no charge, send it to me immediately. So in short order, the construction began:
As you can see, the house is built around the stair assembly and if I knew then what I know now, I would have painted the walls as I went along. Anyway, that's another story.
Construction went along pretty smoothly and began to take shape and look like a house:
A year or so had passed, we'd moved into apartment #2 (hand-carrying the dollhouse to the new apartment) and I had discovered the HUGE world of miniatures out there (the oxymoron of the century). Not only could I find anything I could ever need to construct the house, but I could find pretty much any building supply that I could ever want. I decided that it would be too boring to just paint the chimney and use the trim that came with the kit and discovered miniature, 1/12 size bricks. They function like tiles and get "mortared" after application but as you can see, they look great. These are pre-mortar.
Here's post-mortar (not post-mortem):
Then I started putting in windows and trim. Next time I think I'll do the siding before the windows. Cutting around the window trim was a b****!! You can see the siding on the main picture of this blog.
I got tired to working on the outside at some point and started adding the electrical system. You can see the "tape wire" system (gray and pink tape) from
Cir-Kit Concepts. They are EXPERTS in dollhouse lighting and they have everything that you need to light up your miniature life.
Well, that's enough for now. I'll post more pictures and information. I have lots more to show and I need to get back to work on it for now! (that and cook dinner . . . )
