Laying the Floor

The quality of your floors are going to determine the quality of your dollhouse.  Floors heavily influence peoples' first impressions of a house (large or small), because they're such a large component of its decorating scheme.  They are, to put it bluntly, too large to ignore.  Therefore, its in your best interests to invest some serious time on the floor.  I know it's really boring, but trust me, in the end, it's worth it.

The floors in the Hampton are very simple.  In later entries, I'm going to show you how to install more complex floors, but for right now, I'm going to stick with the most ultra basic floor you can lay--the standard plank floor.  As with many miniature pursuits, it's a lot harder to lay this floor successfully than it looks.  Make sure you master the techniques in this post before you move on.

For the Hampton, I used flooring sheets.  Commonly called "scribed sheathing," these are sheets of basswood that come already inscribed with lines.  The scribed sheathing here is 1/16" thick, with 1/4" thick lines inscribed on it.  Each sheet is 3" wide.  I started by cutting sheets to fit into the room.  This can be sort of a delicate process--you want all of your sheets to line up along the front of the dollhouse.  Be careful when you cut the sheets, and remember: it really is better to measure twice, cut once.  Once you've cut all of your sheets, lay them in a line somewhere out of the way.

I stained the edges of the sheets before I installed them, to save myself some time and effort.  The disadvantage to installing, and then staining, the edges of the sheets is you have to get the sheets saturated with stain while, at the same time, keeping the stain off of the walls.  This isn't easy.

To install the sheets, I use quick grip, although any contact cement would work.  I prefer not to use tacky glue for this step, for two reasons: it contains too much liquid and it takes too long to dry.  A very wet glue is going to warp the wood, and the longer your drying time, the greater your chances of something falling out of alignment.  

Spread quick grip along the underside of the sheet, and then snug it against the wall.  Always start with the sheet that's going nearest to the door.  You want to make absolutely certain that the sheet is flush with the threshold of the door.  Here, because the room was slightly too small to fit my heavier (and larger) books, I used scrap wood to weight the strip in place.  This is a good technique to use, because it makes use of your otherwise useless lengths of scrap wood.  I snugged each piece of wood into place until it was firmly (but not too tightly) pressing into the sheet.

Wait for the sheet to dry--at least half an hour.  Then, you can proceed with the next sheet.

After you install the last sheet, you can stain the rest of the floor.  Here, the center section of the floor is still bare.  For the Hampton, I used a stain I mixed myself.  However, you can use almost any stain.  When I'm looking for a pre-made stain, I'm looking for one that's water based and fairly opaque.  I want one that's water based, because it dries more quickly and it's less toxic.  If at all possible, I prefer to work with non-toxic materials.  They're a lot safer for me, and they're a lot safer for any children or pets who might come in contact with one of my dollhouses.  I want a stain that's opaque, because it disguises the grain of the wood better.  Nothing ruins scale like a huge knot in the middle of your floor, or wall.

Once the stain dries (wait 24 hours), apply 3 coats of Krylon matte finish spray.  I always apply at least 3 coats before I sand.  3 light coats look a lot better than one or two heavy coats.  If you want a more "new" looking floor, apply 3 more coats, sand and apply a final finish coat.