The House that Dawn Built
Now with pictures!
I decided to purchase the Corona Buttercup house kit for a couple of reasons. It looked cute and I wanted a new project (like I don't have enough going on already) so I justified it to myself by promising to build the little house for a friend's 4 year old daughter.
I will detail my experiences with the kit as I work through it. This should give you an idea of what to expect with these type of kit houses. I am taking pictures as I go along and will add them when they are available.
Sept. 10 1997
4:30 pm The box arrives in the mail. Finally. I ordered this thing about 5 weeks ago. Open the package, and whoops! The mailing box is the only packaging, the kit sheets are loose inside, and the invoice is stuffed in there someplace, too. A quick check over the contents shows everything has arrived in good condition. I have heard horror stories about the quality of Corona kits, but I find only one small defect in the plywood.
4:45 pm Since I have nothing better to do at the moment, I take the box out to the garage and get ready to start building. I begin by looking over the instructions and familiarizing myself with the pieces. The instructions say to use the picture on the box as a guide, but my box came with no picture, just an address label. Fortunately there are black and white photos of the interior and exterior views in the instructions.
5:00 pm I decide to stain the two floor pieces a dark walnut. I have some of that stain-and-sealer stuff in a can somewhere around here... I apply it and notice immediately the two different pieces of plywood stain to slightly different shades. Do you think a 4-year-old will notice? The pieces are also warped. I wonder if this will make assembly difficult. I have some of the walls ready to prep, with my handy can of spray Kilz.
5:05 pm Paint fumes are filling the garage, time to call it a night.
9:30 pm Come out to check the drying process. Everything looks okay, except for the warp. I get some water, some paper towels, newspaper, and look around for useless heavy things. By damping down the unpainted and unstained sides of the wood I can then apply weights and let them dry flat.
9:50 pm Punch out few more pieces, sand them, and apply primer. These are small enough to be flat, so I don't have to worry about straightening them.
9:55 pm Had enough of that. Good night.
Sept. 11
11:30 am Check out the night's work. The two sides are nice and flat after being weighted. The floors aren't, but are still better than before they were weighted. Oh well. I'm ready to prime the rest of these pieces, but the can is out of propellant. I'll have to get more after lunch.
1:40 pm Back from the hardware store. Finish laying out and spray-priming all the surfaces. It is a gorgeous day out, so I open the garage door and enjoy the weather. I have some other projects to work on while I wait for this to dry.
2:40 pm Primer is dry enough to work with. I sand a little bit more. Look at the instructions again and dry-fit the pieces. Some of the little tabs don't fit well, and I have to sand them some. Warm up the glue gun, and do another test fit. I'm dissatisfied with the all-in-one finish on the floors. The color looks good, but the surface is still rough, despite additional sanding. I decide I will apply a traditional polyurethane over it when the house is a little more assembled. I glue the two floors in place with spare amounts of hot glue.
2:45 pm I discover I have forgotten to prepare the two little pieces that go on either side of the door. Drop everything and prep those. Got to wait now for them to dry. I'm also wondering at what stage I should wallpaper. I am thinking of doing that as soon as I get the front on. I can seal the floors tonight and paper in the morning.
4:10 pm Coffee in hand, I go to check the primer. It's dry enough. (Note, I have no idea what the instructions say as far as dry times. I just know it isn't tacky anymore.) I'm in a hurry here, so I skip priming the outer sides of the wall. I'll just do that at a later point. I glue up the front bits as instructed, and realize that if I stop here, without putting on the very front piece with the door opening, it'll be easy to paper and finish the insides. I take a minute to run heavy beads of glue along the underside of the first floor. Hopefully this will add some stability. I also manage to burn myself with the hot glue while adding the first and second floor support pieces.
4:20 pm I go inside to get my cutting mat and ruler for measuring the wallpaper. I take stock of the stuff I bought for the house. One sheet of pale blue scalloped paper, one of a pink texture, and one with pink flowers and blue stripes on a cream background. It looks like it will be too much... until I start measuring things. I used part of the striped paper in one of my larger houses, so I have a limited supply of that. I decide to put the stripes on the bottom half of the first floor, and the blue on the upper half of the walls, with walnut-stained trim to act as a chair rail. I have to do a very little bit of cleaning up from the glue. Since I didn't use gobs of it there are only a few little bumps to clean out of the corners. I cut along one edge with the knife and pick them right out.
5:15 pm The striped paper is in. Got to remember that the stuff stretches when it gets wet with the glue (used white glue) and bubbles. Why am I papering over primer? Could I have saved myself some time and effort not priming? Yeah, but the wood is dark, and the paper is kind of light, and I wanted a good surface for the paper to go on top of. A single coating of primer seems to make the paper look better when it's a light color.
I cut the blue paper a quarter inch too narrow. Oops! I measured to the trim piece on the bottom of the second floor instead of to the ceiling. This means I'll need to put a cornice moulding up to cover it. Meanwhile the mosquitoes have discovered me. I think the smell of the glue is attracting them.
5:20 pm I've closed the garage door to try and keep the bugs out. Since I forgot to seal the floors before wallpapering, I will do that now. I'll leave the other strip of blue paper for tomorrow. I slap a nice coat of glossy sealer on the two floor pieces, noticing that the entire house is not sitting flat because of the warp in the floors. I'll have to figure a way to fix that. Maybe it will straighten itself out when the entire thing is assembled. Maybe. Meanwhile, this is looking like a nice little house. I'm tempted to order another one for myself...
Sept. 12
3:10 pm Resumed work by gluing in more wallpaper. I cut it correctly this time. :) That uses up the last of the blue paper. I wonder if I will have enough to do the second floor. Used steel wool on the floor surfaces and smoothed them out some. I like the way they are coming out now. I may put on a second clearcoat at some point.
Glued on the front of the door bay section. I neglected to dry fit this piece beforehand, and, of course, it doesn't fit properly. I found myself with the knife cutting out the glue and re-doing the assembly. Took a while, but it fits better now --not perfect, just better. I had to cut one of the tabs to get it to fit, too.
4:30 pm The warp seems to have gone away. The house is sitting flat now. Putting the front on seems to have done it, probably in combination with the high humidity.
Prepared the sections that will be the bay window. Thought I had lost the pieces at first. Stuff is starting to get spread out a little too much as I work.
5:00 pm Dry fit the bay window pieces to see how it goes together. I will stain the window seat parts and paint the other interior sides. I don't have enough wallpaper to cover them, small as they are. Separated the pieces and stained or primed them as needed. Also stained several half-inch wide lengths of balsa to use as baseboard trim.
5:20 pm Started sorting through the leftover paint cans in the garage to see what I have. Found two shades of blue, one pink, one champagne. The pink matches the wallpaper pretty closely. What luck! Chose the darker of the two blues, though it's still a pastel. Spent a long time stirring both cans.
5:40 pm Painted the first interior coat of blue on the bay window pieces. The paint smooths out the wood surface fairly well. I'll let it dry and do a second coat before assembling it tomorrow.
Sept. 13
12:25 pm Applied the second coat of blue paint to the interior bay window pieces. While waiting for that to dry I put a light first coat of white on the exterior of the assembled house. I should have used wood filler on the slots and tabs first. The next part of the instructions is for the window trim, so I decide to insert my own step and glue down the basebord trim I prepared yesterday. The balsa strips go in easily and it actually is looking pretty nice inside.
Now it's time to punch out all those pieces and begin sanding them. They really take a lot of work. This is where the quality of the plywood makes itself known. At least two of the window trim pieces broke when I was punching them out of the sheets. They'll go back together easily enough, but sanding is a pain. There are a lot of little splinters on these pieces. Because the quality of the ply varies from sheet to sheet, some are coming out better than others. At least one exterior window frame is badly splintered due to the poor top surface layer. I tell myself I could use balsa or basswood and cut trim myself, but I think it would be just as much work.
Some of the pieces, the exterior window trims, I will paint blue, and the interiors pieces I will stain walnut to match the other wood. I carefully divide the two sets of window pieces.
2:15 pm Have everything sanded and spray primed the exterior trims. Stained the interior trims: I will take a break and let those dry now.
3:20 pm Used steel wool on the inside blue painted walls of the bay window. Looks good. While I'm over here, I paint the first coat of blue on the window trim pieces.
The bay window and window seat is ready to go together. I dry fit everything, noticing that some paint has got into the slots and needs to be cleaned out with the knife so everything fits properly. I read over the assembly instructions, which say to attach the walls and then do the bit under the window seat from the inside. I don't think that seems like a good plan, so I put the entire bay together before attaching it to the house. I glue the cupboard doors shut, pushing them through the holes just a little bit to give the effect of raised panelling. I put this piece in last, but I'd suggest you do it before putting the last side piece on. Otherwise, there really is no way to secure the front panel while the glue dries. I got lucky in that mine did not slip back into the bay and dry in the wrong place. Also, the window seat piece overhangs in the front slightly, and will need to be finished on the underside as a result.
The bay fits well. Overall, I am impressed with how accurately the pieces are fitting, I am having to do less trimming than with the Greenleaf kits. From the inside, though, it's ugly. When I trim the wallpaper out of the opening, I can see that the tabs show at the floor with white primer from the exterior wall and there are a few places where the ends of the plywood show. I decide to cut and stain thin strips of balsa to apply on either side of the bay where it attaches to the house, and on the floor in the joint between the window seat cupboard and the first floor piece. When that is in it has a much more finished appearance.
4:35 The last of the impromptu trim is in place and I am satisfied. I'm also done with this for the day.
Sept. 14
12:45 pm Put the second coat of blue paint on the window trims and left it to dry. This is perhaps the most frustrating part of the assembly. There is a lot of work involved in a few small pieces, and progress is not as apparent as it was the first few days when I put most of the house structure together. The trim will need more work before it looks good, and I keep reminding myself that this is what you get with these kits.
1:45 pm Started work on the interior window assembly. The plastic windows need to be carefully removed from the sheet they are cut from, or they will tear. I cut the joins with my craft knife. The little square windows go in first, and since I'm not sure which way the decorative silkscreen design is supposed to go, I arbitrarily choose horizontal positioning. I take a minute and cut out the wallpaper that is covering the windows I am about to work on. The window trim looks lot bigger than the windows. I check it. Yup. A quick inventory of trim parts tells me there is going to be a problem. You are supposed to glue the plastic window to the window casing, glue that over the window, and put the trim on around that. This leaves a quarter inch of space between the window hole and the window trim on half the window. If you've wallpapered or painted, like I have, it shows through. Ugh. Since my interior windows are stained, I break out the handy supply of thin balsa and start cutting 1/4 inch strips to use as window casing. This will ruin the double-hung effect , but prevent the wallpaper from showing through.
I go ahead and glue in the two front windows, quickly realizing that the pieces have to be weighted down while they dry. There is just enough warp in the pieces that one end or the other won't stay down. I balance the house on it's front and use the small can of walnut stain and a metal C-clamp to hold the two window trims in place. While that is drying there isn't much else I can do. I amuse myself with trying to cut 1/4 inch lengths of stained balsa for the chair railing. I glue in the trim on the left, bay window side of the house.
2:20 pm I could sand and prep the remaining exterior trim pieces, but it's getting muggy and uncomfortable. I think I'll leave this for later in the evening.
September 24
5:25 pm The novelty of this kit has worn off, with some of my enthusiasm. After sitting for 10 days I went out to polyurethane some furniture pieces, and decided to pick up on the house again. The two windows I weighted down are quite dry by now. I glue in the balsa strips around the top inside of each window so the wallpaper underneath won't show. I decide to put in the two arched windows on either side of the doorway, since they won't require additional trim. While trying to cut the wallpaper out of the windows I realize it's time to change the blade in my knife. One of the papers is plastic-coated and tears rather than cutting. At least it will be covered by the window trim. I glue each window to its frame, and stick the first one on. I find out it has to be weighted down, too. This means I can do that one window now,and the other one will have to wait. Wish I'd realized this before putting the glue on. Oh well.6:10 pm Got the window in and weighted. I consider adding exterior window pieces to the walls that I can reach with the house on it's side like this. They need more painting and sanding, though, before they're ready.
11:05 pm Second batch of furniture needs to be polyurethaned... might as well do the other window while I'm here. I put in the arched window on the right side, and the square window on the right side as well. I can weight them both at the same time.
11:20 pm A quick coat of polyurethane on the furniture and I'm off to bed....
September 25
5:45 pm Resumed work on the windows. I am distressed to find there is no interior trim for the front door and windows on either side, or for the inside of the bay windows. Both have large ornate exterior trims, but nothing inside. I will have to come up with something, at least for the front door, because the wallpaper doesn't cover the area.
I remove the exterior trims and prepare them. These pieces are a little better than the window trims were, but not much. Sanding only seems to produce splinters.
While sanding I realize the exterior wall of the left side of the house, above the bay window, will actually be an interior wall once the roof pieces are added. I put down a scrap of paper to catch drips and slap some paint on. Yeah, it can only be seen through the windows, but it's an easy enough detail to fix.
I go back to sanding trim. I decide to ditch the little X pieces because they are a pain to sand. I now have a small pile of door and window trim pieces to paint, including the two exterior arched window trims I thought were interior pieces and had stained earlier. At least I didn't accidentally paint something that should have been stained.
6:40 pm Enough painting. Time to wash the brushes.
September 26
2:50 pm I'm ready to put the exterior window trim on, but first the outside of the house has to be painted. Before I can do that I need to use some wood putty on the joints. While scraping and filling tab slots I notice that the bay window attachment has come loose on one side. Makes filling that joint just a bit tricky.
3:05 pm I think that's about it for the can of wood filler. It's had a long, useful life, and is ready to be buried now.
October 1
12:35 pm Took a few minutes to sand off some of the filler. I'm using 60 grit for this, and will go over it sometime later with the 120 for a smooth finish.
October 17
New job is keeping me busy during the days and making my spare time precious. Haven't had much to devote to continuing the dollhouse, but hope things settle down soon.
November 1
Discovered this morning that my housemate managed to spray green paint all over the garage in his zeal to finish his Halloween costume. One side of the interior of the house has a light but noticeable coating of green paint on the pastel pink and blue paper. Grrr!!
The overspray wiped off the plastic windows and the lighter of the two wallpapers, but the blue on the upper half is ruined.
November 8
8:35 - 9:30 pm. Told Tim to put on some warm clothing because the garage floor was going to be cold. Went out and pulled the windows off the existing wallpaper. All but one came off easily, the last one stuck a bit and tore some of the paper --but it won't show when it goes back on. Peeled the blue plastic-coated paper off, the top layer came easily. A little water and a paintbrush got the paper layer that was actually glued down. Made Tim scrape it off. Thanks to the layer of primer on the wood it was a fairly easy job.
Cut and glued in the new blue paper for the upper half of the house. It bubbled as expected. Tim did a fairly good job of keeping it smoothed down so it could dry. Tomorrow I will try to get the windows back on.
November 28
11:25 -11:45 am. Went out to take a look at things. It's been a while since I've been able to work on this. Spent half an hour cleaning the garage. Trimmed the new wallpaper out of the windows, being careful to leave it on around the inside of the front door and windows, since I know now there is no trim for that. Glued on the two interior front-facing windows and weighted them down. Left them to dry.
3:10 pm. Popped out to the garage to glue and weight the two windows on the right side.
November 30
1:25 pm. Thinking about doing more windows, but it's awfully cold out in the garage. Maybe I'll work on something indoors today.
Part Two
