Ballroom Floor

It's been a while since I've posted, but I have been working on Myrtlewood. January and February, in particular, are my busiest months at work, so bulding progress has been slow, but I've tried to still work on it a little each weekend. Here you can see the fruits of my labor - the ballroom and music room floors.

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I cut every piece by hand.

Just kidding. I like to think I could have cut each piece by hand, but it probably would have taken me two years to complete instead of two months. I did stain and place each tiny piece individually, but the pieces were already cut: I found these great parquet kits for the sunburst medallion and the border at an online dollhouse shop. The kits were about $15 each, and I needed two for the border and one for the sunburst, so you're looking at a $50 floor here. Money well spent, as far as I'm concerned, considering the time it saved me and the overall results.

Here's the music room, an alcove off the ballroom:

Detail:

I've been working on a few other things off and on, and my busy period at work ends in about a week, so I should have more to show you soon.

Kitchen Beginnings

There's not a whole lot to see here right now, but I wanted to assure you that construction on Myrtlewood is still underway! Here you can see the floors I've finished for the kitchen (right) and butler's pantry (left).

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Note the spaces in the kitchen for the stove (left back), what will be a small pantry (right back) and a servant's staircase (right front). Part of the servant's staircase will pull out to give access to the wiring. Maybe. Now that I've already wired that part, I'm thinking about switching up where I put the circuit board. If I change that, I'll have to rerun all the wiring. Sigh.

I've also finished the floor for the dining room.

I'm about 2/3 finished with the floors for the first floor now. I really need to finish them before I start on the walls, but creating them is so tedious, I keep getting distracted by other things! I really will finish them one of these days!

Next time: pictures of my early (miniature building-related) Christmas present from my dear husband. I've been a very good girl this year!

More Floors

I absolutely adore libraries. I think you can get to know so much about a person just by looking at the types of books with which he has chosen to surround himself. I especially loved the libraries in the movies My Fair Lady, Disney's Beauty and the Beast and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I'm also really inspired by several real-life libraries:
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Melk Abbey in Austria:

Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC:

I therefore knew Myrtlewood would have a library before I'd even given a thought to any of the other rooms. I had to balance my desire to build a huge library, though, with my lack of desire to make thousands of tiny books (seriously, they are a pain to make). So Myrtlewood's library wil be small and cozy, but I will find a way to work some luxury in.

Which leads me to the floor. Yes, I'm still working on floors; I fear I may be working on them for a year or more, at the rate I'm going. Anyway, I'd been inspired by a parquet floor in a window pane design I'd seen somewhere and thought it would add some interest to my little library. Here's how I created it.

First I figured out the dimensions I wanted for each piece (3/8" wide for each walnut plank and 6/8" square for each cherry piece), then measured out the design, centered it in the room and drew the entire design in pencil on the plywood floor.

Then I cut and glued down the vertical walnut planks.

I cut and sanded each horizontal strip so that it fit perfectly.

Even though I'd measured the walnut planks very carfully, there were still variations in the sizes of the open spaces. So I cut and sanded each cherry square to an exact fit. I do not have pictures of me doing this; I'm still trying to block the entire painful process from my memory. Here's what it looked like when I'd finished.

I finished it as I usually do: by sanding, restaining and giving the entire thing a few coats of polyurethane.

Not bad. I think I'll keep it.

Wood Floors

The time period I picked for Myrtlewood is the mid-1880s. For that reason, and also because I don't really care for the look of dollhouse carpeting, Myrtlewood will have wood flooring throughout. This is a big project, as I am cutting and placing each plank individually. Here you can see how I made the parlor floor.
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First, I pre-conditioned and stained several pieces of 1/32" basswood a deep walnut color. I chose to stain the wood first, rather than laying it all and then staining it, because I like to take the wood grain into account when placing each plank, and I can see the grain much more clearly when it's been stained.

I cut planks 3/8 inches wide by 12 inches long and began laying them onto the plywood base, staggering the end joints, as you can see below.

As I glued them down to the floor, I weighted them down for a few minutes to keep the planks from curling up on the ends. Some people use contact cement instead of glue to keep the thin wood from curling, but you can't really move the pieces once they've contacted the base, and I'm just not skilled enough to lay everything perfect the first time! I need to be able to adjust each plank slightly after I've laid it down on the base. So I just use regular wood glue and a very sophisticated weighting system:

Here's what the floor looked like once I'd laid all the planks:

After I was sure that all the glue had dried, I sanded the entire floor to smooth it out, wiped up all the sawdust with a damp cloth and then restained the entire floor. Once the stain dried, I gave the floor two coats of a polyurethane sealer, sanding lightly in between coats. Here is the finished floor:

One floor down, only eighteen more to go!

Laying Brick

I wanted the long front porch of Myrtlewood to be made of brick. But the individual bricks sold at dollhouse supply stores are expensive and too thick for my purposes, and the bricks that come in sheets just don't look realistic to me. I've seem some fantastic results from people who sculpt bricks out of clay, but I haven't worked with clay much (yet!) and needed something more foolproof. The most realistic results I've seen have resulted from a technique using cardboard egg cartons (yes, you read that right!). I found a great tutorial online and was eager to get started.

So I started cutting up the egg cartons I had stashed just for this purpose. I cut, and I cut and I cut some more. Then I rested my hands for a few days and then I cut some more! I cut out each "brick" by hand, and even snipped off each corner of each brick for a more realistic look.

When I had a fair number prepared, I started gluing them, one by one, directly onto the plywood base. As the porch runs the entire 60-inch length of the house, I had a lot of brick to lay!

Don't worry; it's going to look really good once I finish!

After I had glued down all the bricks, I sponge painted them, first using a burnt sienna base and then layering several other colors over the top until I achieved a more realistic brick color. Then I sprayed the whole thing with a matte sealer. Once that was dry, I spread grout with my fingers over the brick, pushing the grout down into the crevices between the bricks and wiping off the excess with a damp sponge. Here's how it looked once I finished:

Bricking the front porch took me two entire weekends to complete, so I don't think I'll be bricking any other large areas of the house (although I do intend to use this same technique to brick the insides of all of the fireplaces). It was totally worth it for the porch, though. I think it turned out great and am so pleased with how realistic it looks!