The Carl Larsson Experiment: Part 5 Stairs To Up There - Real Good Toys 22 Town Hill Road CC2 Front Opening Kit

Stair Assembly

I think this kit must be pretty old, as the stairs are an assembly job, not like the RGT Tudor, which had solid stairs that needed no assembly. I'm glad these stairs came this way as I wanted them to be almost like a ladder, so you can see through them, into the kitchen. I left their kicks off, to achieve this effect. I also left them unattached to the home, so they could be removed at will for easier play. Like I play with my dollhouses! Ha!

I've used a piece of wood to clamp the sides of the stairs onto, for even spacing when I glued the treads on.

Not So Tall Walls

Well, I got my inspiration for the top floor, at all places, K-mart. Between a matching placemat and runner, I have the "wallpaper" for the small room. The embroidered print is a little bigger than what I would normally choose, but I thought, if I was painting a room like Carl Larsson, a large design might be fun!

 

 

Stairs To Up There

Now I've got all the interior sides done and the stairs and their opening all trimmed out. As you can see I can hardly wait so I put a few pieces in the kitchen, so I can enjoy my handiwork. Love that gold porcelain pooch!

Retrofit the Kit Tudor Dollhouse: Part 10 Roof Roof! - Real Good Toys Country Tudor CC15

Gettin' close now. Every part of this project I've had nervous tummy but for some reason this is up at the top of tum tum list. A lot is goin on, the skylight cutout, the Greek art transfer, the shingling, the chimneys' location and installation! Enough beer... gee, I have a lot to think about!

Prepping the Attic ceiling.....

 I painted the two sides of the Attic ceiling the Attic wall color and the roofs a wash with brown. I figured if there was any spaces between the shingles, I wanted it to be dark.

 

Here I'm preparing the vintage Greek art transfer for the Attic ceiling. I've marked out my corners on the dry, painted ceiling and I'm readying the transfer for its 10 second bath to activate the adhesive. The insurance card is to squeegie the excess water and bubbles out once the transfer is set. Its very delicate. Once it dried I touched it up with a gold pen and gave it a couple of coats of polyurethane.

__________________________

Finally, the Roof!

Prepping the roof...

I followed the spacing given in the directions and laid out the lines for the shingle placement. 

INSTRUCTION DEVIATION: Instead of putting the roof on the house, and then shingling the roof, I've opted to shingle the roof on my work surface, for more accuracy and control.

Clamping a straightedge to my guide lines has made for a even, easy placement of the shingles. I used my regular Aileen's glue to attach the shingles, I didn't feel confident with a glue gun. On the far left you can see I've left a shingle out so I can still nail the roof section to the house sides. The shingle that is place horizontally isn't glued in, it just hold the shingle up for proper alignment.

After a few more rows of shingles, I glue in the skylight (a House Works 8 divided light). A couple of pieces of house trim is used with clamps to firmly set it in place. The chimney is glued in and I carefully cut shingles to glue around it.

I give each row of shingles about a 1/2 hour to dry. Slow going but I can get dinner done or do a load of laundry. Multitasking is the dollhouse way!!

__________________________

Feets

OK, so I know the title said "Roof Roof". But for some reason I thought the dollhouse would be more functional and cute with some feets.

I found an awesome set on eBay for about $9, including shipping. Swankie! They came extra quick.
An easy stain and ploy mini project.

Well, next time the roof will go on!

Retrofit the Kit Tudor Dollhouse: Part 7 Stairway To Heaven (NOT, Just the Art Studio) - Real Good Toys Country Tudor CC15

Oye!!!!!! Once I finally made the "jump" to attach the stairs, it went pretty fast! With Thanksgiving and getting my wisdom teeth pulled, it just got put off. Dolly's gonna be living in an igloo at this rate!

 

Gettin' Ready

 

Figured I'd better set the back up to get just the right position for the stairs:

 

Earlier I centered and applied the wallpaper on the 2nd floor back. After taping the back securely on, I glued the stairs to the back, not the landing or ceiling. I still want to be able to take the back off for when I work on the inside front. Having thru and thru access has proved to be a smart idea.

 __________________________

 

 

Pulling the back off, I'm able to apply the paneling and chair rail to the back wall:

Left pic: Why even clamping is so important!!!!                   Right pic: Morticia Adams lent me Thing for hand "clamping".

 

Since I don't have an unobstructed back wall anymore (the stairs), I get a glass of wine and set to "clamping" each paneling piece by hand, until they they are firmly set, about 15 minutes each. OK, so I had more than one glass of wine!!! I then fitted and cut the chair rail and glued it on.

 

 __________________________

 

Attic Art Studio

 

 

Well, I've been bad girl. I went to the local home improvement store and sampled some of the laminate flooring samples, about four matching ones of each kind that I was interested in "installing in my home". And the attic's side walls of this Tudor seem perfect for the sandwashed look of "Alpine Elm". Luckily I could get two sections out of each sample! They're easy to cut with a utility knife and straight edge, though you have to score them a few times.

 

I had enough chair rail left to use on the raw top edges of the attic's side walls. I glued and clamped them in first, then glued and clamped my "flooring" panels on, snugging them up into the chair rail bottom.

__________________________

Well, it can't be helped, I had to test the furniture pieces for the Attic Art Studio!!

Now I'm really glad I dropped the floor about an 1 1/2 ". This is fast becoming my favorite floor in the house (I say that about each of the floors I'm sure!).

 

Oh gosh! I can hardly wait, once again, to be done!!!