December 7, 1997
I guess, technically, I could finish this in time to ship it for Christmas. Realistically, though, I know better.
January 13, 1998
3:45 pm Cleared off the kitchen island and covered it with newspaper. Brought the house in to work on it. The cats can't imagine what I am doing in the kitchen during the afternoon, unless I am going to feed them early. Tiger decides the house is his, after all, he can squeeze into it.
Was ready to put the windows on, but first I have to finish painting the exterior, and before I can paint I have more sanding to do. I make quick work of it and get to the paint. It is so dry in the house the paint is workable in less than half an hour. I spend some time cutting trim strips to cover the join in the two wallpapers on the first floor. I don't have quite enough to complete the interior, so I will have to cut and stain more balsa later.
4:30 pm The window exteriors do not fit together smoothly because of the heavy paint. I spend a minute with the sandpaper and do a little scraping with the craft knife. It's better now. I'm ready to glue, but I realize the white exterior paint will show through what is supposed to be window trim. Argh! I hunt around for the blue trim paint I haven't used in 4 months, then slap some on around the bottom half of the windows. It looks sloppy, but it will be completely covered by the exterior trim, so I'm not worried about losing points for neatness here.
5:00 pm I've been at this nearly two hours and don't see much change. *Sigh* When I get the roof on it should start to look more "finished". The blue paint around the windows dries fast enough that I can get the two front windows glued and weighted down by 5:30.
I guess with the dollhouse in the middle of the kitchen we will have to go out for supper. :)
January 14
10:30 am. Was able to get the one square end window and the small arched window on that side of the door glued down last night before bed. Turning the house over to the other side I realize it doesn't sit flat anymore, and I have to grab some scraps to wedge under it to do the fancy bay window at the other end.4:10 pm. The glue is dried but the top part of the bay window trim did not stick to the side of the house. I skip it for now and prepare to glue on the front door trim. The trim seems to be slightly warped. I don't realize how warped until I have it glued up and find that four cans of stain aren't enough to weight it down flat. I resort to a cast iron trivet for additional weight.
4:20 pm. I spread some glue under the part of the bay window trim that did not stick, and use small clamps to hold it in place this time.
4:45 pm. After a coffee break I resume work, this time punching out the round windows and roof trim bits. The roof trim has delicate fiddly corners and tiny pieces that have to be punched out. I manage to slice open a knuckle with the craft knife as I try to clean the corner of one trim piece. Fortunately I don't get blood on the white painted parts of the house.
4:55 pm. With a fresh bandaid on, I start sanding the round windows and trims. Agh. I look at the picture of the house and think about punching out and sanding all the half-circle roofline trim. I wonder if that will hold up to being shipped, and then being played with by dogs and older brothers, and decide to skip it. I have some shingles for the roof, that should make it really nice instead. Meanwhile, the cat is really pissed that I have been in the kitchen an hour and not fed him yet.
5:10 pm. Everything is sanded down and I take it out to the garage for a quick coat of spray primer. It's about 40F out. I wonder if the spray thingie will work. It seems to go okay, so I leave it for now.
January 15
2:45 pm. Stirred up the blue paint again and painted all the exterior round windows and trim bits. Remember that I should have left the interior window pieces for staining. Since they are primed, I guess I will paint them.3:10 pm. Realize that I am missing the tiniest round window piece and spend a frantic 15 minutes searching for it. Fortunately it did not go out in the trash last night, and I find it on the floor of the garage. Shortly afterward I discover that the blue I am using today is not the same blue I used in the rest of the house, it is one shade lighter. Oh well, they'll need a second coat anyway.
May 9
1:45 pm The house has been sitting on my sewing machine since January (guess what else I haven't done in months!) and it's time to get this finished. Spent ten minutes digging everything out and figuring out where I left off. Then I started preparing the roof pieces. Not much sanding needed on these, the wood is a little better in the sheets they are cut from. I'm painting the inside of the bay roof white. Got to let those dry before I glue them on.Preparing the half-roof section for the open side of the house I make sure to sand the edges nice and smooth, well as smooth as I can get the plywood, anyway. The section fits well into the exisiting house structure. I paint the inside of that white as well. It won't be seen, but I want to seal it none the less.
The three pieces that make up the front of the roof fit very snugly. Fortunately I have not put in the second storey windows, because I need those holes to get leverage as I dry fit everything. I have to trim the tabs on the wall sections just a bit to get them to fit, but it's not a problem. The problem is the walls from the first floor come right up to the edge of the 2nd floor roof, and will have to be sanded down so the roof lays flush against the sides up the upstairs walls.
2:45 pm Time to start trimming. I'm moving this from the kitchen to the garage because of the mess it will make. When I'm sure of what I need to remove, I lay the roof pieces out and spray prime them. They will have wallpaper later. Took a few minutes to hunt out the shingles I bought and double check that I have enough to cover the roof. I have 500 square inches worth. That ought to do it.
3:40 pm All the sanding is done. I found I could trim some with the craft knife and it went faster. Dry fit the roof again and it looks good. I'm at the point now where most of the sheets have had everything punched out of them and can be thrown away. Will make for a smaller mess.
4:00 pm Started the wallpaper. Because I chose a non-directional mottled pink tone-on-tone pattern I can get all four pieces of the front of the roof papered by carefully laying out my cutting lines. I use a wet brush to spread white glue on the wood, then lay the wallpaper pieces on and smooth them with the flat of my straight edge. It's a vinyl paper and it's not bubbling, thank goodness.
4:15 pm Painted the two end walls of the upstairs a light pink. Masked off the floor (I knew those old copies of my thesis would come in handy some day) and applied the first coat. I'll let it dry and do a second in a little bit. Trimmed the wallpaper from the roof pieces I did earlier. It's really starting to look finished now.
5:00 pm Went out to the garage to check the paint and see about a second coat. It had dripped down the walls and leaked under the masking tape and paper. What a mess! I've never seen old paint this runny before. After a minute of panic I got some paper towels and a sponge and started cleaning up. Wiped up what I could, sponge got more. With a little scrubbing it all came up off the stained walnut floor. I could have painted this before assembly. I know. Hindsight is 20/20. Carefully applied a second coat of paint, thinner this time, and left it to dry. Fortunately the baseboard trim I will add will cover any messed up spots along the join.
May 24
Had a slight accident with the house last weekend. The guys were out in the garage working on another project and very carefully put the house up out of the way so it wouldn't get stepped on or bumped into. Unfortunately it got put high enough up on top of the cabinet that opening the garage door later caused it to be pushed to the floor. Some of the seams have come apart, and several windows popped off. There is one gouge in the roofline plywood that will have to be filled. It looks like a little bit of glue and a lot of clamping will fix everything but the gouge.July 1998
I have accepted a new job and moved from Dallas to Kansas City. The houses and all my tools are packed away. My workspace is gone, I barely have room now to store everything. Not sure when I will have the space to resume my projects.
September 1, 1999
Been a while, eh? The good news is that we are moving into a house in November and I will have a garage and basement to put the house into. Meanwhile, they've been stored in my spare bedroom (along with a lot of boxes thet never got unpacked.) I have to look at them *every day* without being able to work on them....The big box on the far left has the Buttercup and the Sweetheart houses in it.