The Carl Larsson Experiment: Part 8, This and That and All Those Little Things - Real Good Toys 22 Town Hill Road CC2 Front Opening Kit

Well, it's coming to where I can see the end!

Now comes all the little finishing up things that you can't wait to finish. Not that shingling a dolly roof is a little thing. Especially after dyeing, salting, coffeeing, and bleaching all the little shingles in a hot sink bath. Yuk!

Railings

But first to finish a major piece, the railings. I can't remember how many little rails I punched out of the, I call it "splinter pack", that the kit has, and sanded each one. I waited to paint the railings until I had them glued up. One set for the top, one for the middle and a couple for the door.

I filled the groove in the top and bottom rails with wood filler, sanded and then painted.

The Roof and Shingles

Like I said above, the shingle dyeing was a journey all it's own. First the shingles were too dark, then too blue. I tried everything I could think of from my clothes dyeing days; salt (that just set the dye darker than I wanted), rinse, vinegar, rinse, strong strong coffee and it's grounds (soak soak soak, stir stir stir) rinse and finally some bleach and the final rinse. They sure did end up having a weathered look and now that they are on I very happy with them. My neighbor thought I was a nut however as she watched me. All I needed was a big wart on my nose and I'm sure I resembled a old wicked witch!

The back. Only a row and a half of shingles to go!

Altered Chimneys

I decided to make the roof part that was supposed to come off for access to the third floor, hinged instead. I just don't like major dollhouse pieces that come off only to possibly be misplaced or accidentally slammed onto dolly furniture! In the instructions the little block chimneys are used to hold the the removeable roof piece onto the home. So now that I won't be using them I have to have chimneys of some sort! Just the thing to try those cool rock stencils you see advertised.

My hubby cut me up some chimneys and I painted them a dark gray with some craft paint. I them peeled off the grout lines of the rock stencil and applied them.

I just had to get an idea what they would look like on the side of the home, especially since I just stained and polyied the sides for a more furniture look...

Gee! I hope I'm not gonna be sad I didn't leave the chimneys just like this!

I mixed some black craft paint with some drywall compound and had at it applying it with a paint mixing stick. I then removed the grout stencil, which was a bit tricky and messy, but I think they turned out ok.

Right: Drying. Love the variegation in tone.         Left: scraping the compound off the back after a thorough drying.

I'm still a quandary whether to touch up the color and how am I going to apply the chimneys to the sides????? Oh well. I'll figure out something!

Almost...

Hopefully my next post will be the last, the finish, the reveal, of the Carl Larsson Experiment. We'll see!

Retrofit the Kit Tudor Dollhouse: Part 11 Button It Up- Real Good Toys Country Tudor CC15

Spoiler alert! This is the second to the last post covering the construction of my Barton Tudor. Yes, I've named it the "Barton Tudor" as it will house my English Barton Tudor 3/4 scale furniture. Just seemed the thing to do!

 

The roof goes on...

 

INSTALLATION DEVIATION: the roof installation. The roof panels were shingled first, then are installed to the home.

The roof pieces are glued and nailed on to the back body peaks where I left openings in the rows of shingles. The front roof pieces are glued and clamped, I didn't want to nail them to the front peak for fear I would break the peak off.

After gluing the top ridge to the top of the roof I finish gluing the last row of shingles on the installed roof, butting them up to the top ridge. I also shingle the roof openings I left open for nailing to the home's peak.

Here I'm gluing and clamping the decorative trim to the front roof edges. I have used scrap trim underneath these new "eaves" to achieve the spacing between the peak and the eave trim and to insure the eave trim is square to the edges.

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Hinging the Door Wall... 

 

INSTRUCTION DEVIATION: I pitched the hinges and clasps of the kit's, bought more decorative hinges and clasps and added an extra hinge as well. I also purchased little screws to attach the hinges.

I bent the tip of one side of each hinge so it curled around the trim on the outside edge of the home.

Well, I'm sorry, I was bad, I didn't take any picts of gluing the feet on, the hinge placement and the drilling of their holes and screwing in their wee screws. 

For the Door Wall attachment, I put the home on its back, set the Door Wall on, making sure to adjust it to fit properly and had at it! I did make sure the three hinges were space evenly to each other.

I then cut some trim and trimmed out the sides of the home and polyed the whole thing, even the shingles.

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Sooo..... if you haven't already guessed, I'm done!

I haven't taken the final picts yet but be sure I will. 

So the next post and last post will be the unveiling of my completed Barton Tudor!!!

Yay!!!

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.

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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!!

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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 9 Push On - Real Good Toys Country Tudor CC15

Continuing the Door Wall...

 

Adding the Side Trim Of the Door Wall

INSTRUCTION DEVIATION: I added a small piece of trim to flesh out the thickness of the Door Wall side trim. The Door Wall sides' trim depth needs to equal the kit's included trims' depth plus the depth of the trim I added over the wallpapers. This extra trim insures the Door Wall will lay flush to the home's body.

• Upper pict: The extra trim piece and side trim glued and clamped to Door Wall sides.
• Right pict: The sides of the Door Wall after clamping and gluing all the trim pieces; side, extra and front trim. The front trim goes beyond the wall, it will be cut off.
• Bottom Pict: Slicing off the extra length of the Door Wall's front side trim with the angle of the Door Wall's roof peak (The kit's instructions don't show this, but it's advertising picture does). Careful!

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Prepping the Roof Parts

 

Preparing the Chimneys

INSTRUCTION DEVIATION: Tossed the included chimney parts and used a Houseworks set.

• Left pict: Painting the chimneys. Dan cut the proper angle off the bottom of the chimneys for me. This is very important or the chimneys will stick out like big ears!
• Bottom pict: Gluing the brick paper to the chimney using Yes Glue. The brick paper wasn't quite the full widths of the chimneys, so painting the side edges of the chimneys made for a nice, crisp look without having to cut the paper to odd size bricks.
• Right pict: Slicing the excess paper off.

Finished chimneys, polyed and drying.

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Shingles and My Kitchen Sink

 

Note the stainless steel sink. If you use an enamel sink, you'll have to bleach it to regain it's color. DON'T EVEN TRY A PLASTIC SINK!!! Remember, you can always use a big bucket!

• Left pict: The hottest H2O, salt, vinegar, 1 black, 2 brown and 1 gray Rit dye. This dye mixture was a big guess, and all the dye I had! Oh and rubber gloves! I had to soak the shingles about 2 hours, stirring every now and again.
• Right pict: The shingles dried and counted into 5 lots of 100 count one 38 count pile (538!). I needed to find out the count to insure enough for all three roofs!! This pict also shows figuring the size of the shed roof for the Door Wall.
• Bottom pic: My trim cut tool taped to 1/2". This makes the under layer of shingles easy to cut and consistant. The under layer of shingles go under the first row of shingles to provide the correct depth so they lay properly.

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Finishing the Door Wall

 

INSTRUCTION DEVIATION: Of course the bay and it's roof continue to be an instruction deviation. The whole Door Wall is one!

• Upper pict: I had to cut and glue little triangles to both sides under the bay roof to cover the open space where the shed roof meets the bay.
• Bottom pict: Applying the bay roof shingles and the bay side and bottom trims.

A few more pieces of trim and the Door Wall is basically, done (!). I will be adding the transom window over the door, curtain rods and a couple decorative circles from the fabric wallpaper.

Finally I am onto the big roof! So close now!!