When the River Runs Dry

It seems to me like every time I fall in love with a product, its discontinued.  I can't tell you how many tools, paints, plastic sheets, trims, etc. have vanished from the shelves, replaced, if at all, by seriously inferior products.  Apparently, I was the only customer enlightened enough to understand their worth!  More times than I care to admit, I've been left high and dry, halfway through a project, unable to finish the way I wanted because the river ran dry.

Even when a product isn't discontinued, sometimes, it can become really hard to find.  Suppliers stop carrying products, and that means favorite stores stop carrying them, too.  Spending hours on the internet, searching for a missing product, is nobody's idea of a great time.

And, once in awhile, I come home from the store with the same product only to discover...it's not the same, after all.  Continuity can be a problem for some manufacturers.  Having created multiples of the same item, myself, I know how difficult it can be to ensure that each one is exactly the same as the next.  The world of dollhouse miniatures is a small one; often, hiding behind the labels, even the big, brand name labels, are individual artisans, with other jobs and commitments.  This field is, for most of us, a labor of love; it's not uncommon for us to stay up late into the night, working on projects, long after we've come home from work, cleaned the house, fed our families, and put them to bed.  Moreover, artisans run into the same problem customers do: unavailable, or suddenly incredibly expensive, rare, or hard to find materials.  

Resultantly, the same wallpaper pattern from the same company can come in slightly different colors, the same paint can come in slightly different consistencies, the same wood can have a slightly--or totally-different grain.  If you're detail oriented, then inconsistencies like these can be a real nightmare, partially or even totally derailing your project.  What can you do?

Always buy what you need for a project, plus at least 10 percent more.  For example, if you need three sheets of wallpaper to finish a room, buy four.  Also, consider working in small, discrete steps; think of the house phase by phase, rather than organically.  Instead of buying a few windows, some flooring, some wallpaper, and some pretty trim, buy all the windows you need, finish them and install them, before moving on to the next step.  Instead of finishing a room from floor to ceiling, wallpaper--or paint--all the rooms first, before installing trim.  Plan out what trim you want to use in each room, and then buy enough trim for each room, finishing the room before you move on.  When I first started finishing dollhouses, I tended to snatch up whatever trim looked good, long before I was even ready to install trim, and lose it, forget about it, or discover, much to my sorrow, that it actually looked hideous inside the house.  I wasted a lot of money--and time--that way before I wised up.  Now, I buy everything in much smaller installments, but I almost always buy enough of everything.  

Some Trim Issues...

Occasionally, despite your best efforts (and mine), things don't fit together quite right.  Even with practice, and, in my case, years of experience, mistakes still happen--we measure wrong, cut wrong or just plain think wrong.  The good news is, most mistakes are easily fixable.  Don't panic, don't beat yourself up--do remain calm and assess, exactly, what is going on.  Some common issues...

Ripped wallpaper--you pulled the masking tape off the wall, and the wallpaper came, too.  Sometimes, if it's just an edge, you can glue it back into place.  Carefully--and gently--dab a small amount of white craft glue onto the underside of the tear, and press the wallpaper back into place.  Make sure you have clean fingers, and use very gentle pressure to rub the paper back into place.  Always rub toward the tear, never away.  If an entire spot of wallpaper is gone, then you might want to consider changing the decorating scheme of the room.  The good news is, nobody knows what your final design is supposed to look like!  Strategically added baseboard, chair rails or even floor to ceiling paneling is going to disguise almost any flaw.

Gaps in your trim.  Below, you can see that there's a small gap between the window and the window casing--how ugly!  Here, I'm adding a small bead of paint, which is filling it in.  This also works well for gaps in crown moulding.  However, if you're adding paint to crown moulding after you install it, make sure you use masking tape to protect the wall and ceiling--otherwise you might end up with a big blob of trim paint where you don't want it!

Sometimes, you wind up with even bigger gaps--gaps that no amount of paint can fix.  This is from a roombox I've been working on over the past week.  The room has twin inset bookcases in the wall.  I thought, when I did the design, that I'd accounted for the depth of the wainscoting adequately.  When I inserted them into the wall, the bookcases were supposed to lie flat against the framing trim.  As you can see, clearly, they were supposed to...but they didn't.  It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but the gap was quite sizable--about 1/16".  That's fairly small in a real house, but huge in a dollhouse.

I cut a second layer of framing trim from 1/8" quarter round trim.  Below, you can see it where it's going to go.  I wanted to make sure that it fit snugly and securely before I finished it.  As it happens, I liked the bookcases better with the second layer of framing trim.  Mistakes are really just opportunities to learn new things and, sometimes, they force us to be more creative with our designs than we might otherwise be.  

Are there any other trim issues that you want me to discuss?  

Trim Part III

Now, it's time to install the trim.  I prefer to start in the back of the room, and work my way to the front.  Sometimes, if you've cut the pieces really tightly, there's an issue with fit--and it's a lot easier to find out that the trim along the sides of the walls is slightly too long, where you can make a nice, straight cut to reduce the excess.  Here, I started with the baseboard.  I ran a bead of epoxy along the back side, and then pressed it into place.  I used the other two pieces of baseboard to press it in place and clamped them along the edge of the roombox.  For the sake of realism, it's important to get a nice, tight fit with the wall--and wood tends to bow out.

Generally, it's important to double-check your marks and measurements before you glue, and, after you set the piece in place but before the glue dries.  I'm a big fan of using scrap wood to hold pieces in place, since, particularly since they're often at odd angles.  It's impossible to use a standard clip on crown moulding, for example.  The consideration, here, is not gouging the floor.  I tend to put a piece of scrap wood, or paper, under the scrap wood to prevent any accidents.

Here, the room is complete.  Make sure you allow adequate drying time for each piece before you remove any clamps and supports.  Generally, I try to allow at least 25 minutes, for epoxy.  You need to allow more time--at least an hour--for tacky glue.  If the glue isn't dry when you remove the clamps and supports, then the piece is going to pop right back off the wall.  This is especially common when the pieces don't fit quite right, or there's any other type of stress on the wood.

Once the inside of the roombox is done, you can complete the outside.  This roombox has a false back, which is going to become the alley.  I saved it until last because I needed to install the door and window.  Now that the trim is all in place, I don't need to reach inside anymore.

Trim Part II

Stairwells can be incredibly challenging--what do you do about trim?  Do you continue it along the wall?  Do you run it around the outer edge?  In real houses, both solutions are common.  My recommendation is, study a few different stairwells at a few different houses.  Here, I chose to continue the trim along the wall.  First, I cut the baseboard and the trim.  Second, I cut a strip of wood to fit between them.  This solution is certainly not the most complex, but it looks nice in most dollhouses.

Trim Part I

Today we're going to go through some basic cutting techniques.  Tomorrow, and later, we'll be addressing some specific techniques, as well as some common problems--like stairwells.  What are you supposed to do with those things, anyway?  I honestly have no idea, I think the majority of kits don't anticipate most finishing issues and concerns.  Here, I can offer you my solutions, but, keep in mind, they're solely the product of my imagination.  They're certainly not the only solutions out there--and your imagination might provide you with much better solutions!

The room we're starting with today is a roombox I'm building for the Sturbridge Miniatures Festival.  When it's done, it's going to be a Victorian kitchen.  I've already installed the door and window, which are going to, when the roombox is complete, face out onto a narrow alley.  The opposite wall is going to be a brick wall, the side of another townhouse.  Victorian London was, architecturally, very similar to parts of New York and Boston--even the very rich lived in narrow, tall townhouses, squished in together side by side.  Space was at a premium, so it was important to use every inch.  Commonly, kitchens and garages were in sunken half basements.  Not only did these basements have limited light, but also they were much closer to the noise and smell of the street.  It's hard for us to imagine, today, but in the days before indoor plumbing and town garbage disposal, city streets were very smelly places.  In class conscious Victorian London, everyone--including the servants--expected the servants to be content with such quarters.

This is something you want to keep in mind, as you start trimming your room--what's the room's purpose?  Who is going to use it, and for what?  A Victorian kitchen, particularly in the home of the very rich, was a utilitarian space.  Encaustic tile was durable and stain resistant.  Baseboard (and crown moulding) sealed up cracks in the wall and kept out drafts.  Chair rails protected the wall against scuffs and scratches from chairs and tables.  While today, with our advances in construction techniques, these trims are purely decorative, back then they served important functions.  The Victorians tried to make them as pretty as they could.  Here, I'm using simple tile and trim, to reflect the room's function.  I'm staining the trim with an oak stain, because, while paint was expensive, back then, wood was still cheap--the reverse of today.

I start by using my mitre box to cut the trim at a 45 degree angle.  I usually sand the cut lightly--very lightly--to remove any "fuzzies" from the wood.  Make sure that, before you cut, you're cutting in the right direction!  It sounds silly, but mistakes do happen.

I like to start with the side walls.  Push the trim all the way in to the corner, but don't mash it.

Lightly mark the edge, where you want to make the cut, with a pencil.

As you're preparing to cut the trim, keep in mind which side of the pencil mark you're going to cut on.  Otherwise, your piece is going to end up either too long or too short.  Measure twice, cut once--it really is true.

For the back wall, I use what I like to think of as the "paper technique."  Trim usually comes in 24" lengths, but roomboxes usually come in 12 or 15" lengths--and therein lies the problem.  The trim you have is almost always longer than the space.  You can use a ruler for this, but why?  Particularly if it's an odd length, a ruler can be sort of ineffective--you end up cutting closer to the nearest mark on the ruler, even when it's not entirely accurate.  So, I push a sheet of typing paper into the corner, and mark along the edge where the trim piece should end.  It's not rocket science, but it works for me.

Here, I make my mark just at the edge of the door.

Now, I hold the trim against the typing paper.

Here, note that it's important to push the edge of the trim right up against the edge of the typing paper--you want to make sure you're going to get a tight fit.  A few millimeters here or there can add up to visible gaps.

I lightly continue the mark on the typing paper onto the trim.

I use a short piece of trim for the corner.  Remember to cut the 45 degree angle at the end before you measure the length of the trim!

Now, I'm ready to cut the chair rail.  I start the same way I start with the baseboard--by cutting the trim on a 45 degree angle.

I want my chair rail to be at a 2.5" height, all the way around the room.  Here, I'm marking that height very lightly with a pencil.  When I hold the trim against the wall (or the typing paper), I want to make sure that I hold it along the pencil marks.  If the trim is crooked, then it's going to be the wrong length.

The trim should fit snugly in place, but you shouldn't have to force it.  If you have to force it, then it's too long.  Here, the chair rail fits tightly enough to stay in place without tape, but I can easily push it out.

After I cut the trim, I taped it in place with masking tape.  Next, I need to stain it to match the door and window.

Last Chance!

At this point, your dollhouse should look like this:

This shell is the Litchfield, available from Earth and Tree.  At this point, all of its floors, walls and ceilings are complete.  The staircase, doors and windows are in place.  It finally looks sort of like a real house.

The title of the post is "last chance" because now is your last chance to make any substantial changes to the dollhouse.  Are you happy with the floors?  The walls?  Do those walls really need another coat of paint?  Do you hate the color?  Sure, it's painful to fix it now...but better painful than impossible.

The basics of the exterior are done, although I still need to add details like porch trim.

I installed an Architect's Choice staircase, which comes in kit form and is, as always, available from Earth and Tree.  I am going to install the treads, balusters and railing when I install the rest of the trim.

At this point, you might be wondering, "why does she keep showing us pictures of different dollhouses?  Why can't she just stick with the Hampton?"  The answer is, the purpose of this series of posts isn't to teach you how to finish one particular dollhouse in one particular way, but instead to give you a general introduction to a core skill set.  You can use these skills on any dollhouse.

Finally Trim!

By now, your house has all the basics--floors, walls and ceilings.  Fun, isn't it?  Believe it or not, you're over the hump.  Yes, adding trim is time consuming, but it's also a lot of fun.  It's the part I always look forward to when I start a new house.  So now you need to ask yourself, what kind of house do I want to have?

Now, more than ever, you need to plan.  I cannot stress this enough.  Why?  First, trim is very expensive.  I bought trim yesterday for four roomboxes and a small dollhouse, and it cost me about 150.00.  You need to know, before you go into the store, what kinds of trim you want and how much of it you're going to need.  Of course, don't discount the value of in-store inspiration--one of the reasons I actually trek to New Hampshire to buy supplies instead of ordering them online is, actually handling the different products gives me new and interesting ideas.  But, one caution I have is, don't buy it if you can't envision how you're going to use it.  I have a "materials graveyard" full of fun components I have yet to find a plausible use for.  I'm sure that, someday, inspiration is going to strike...but in the meantime, I'm stuck with them.

The first thing I do is clean out the dollhouse.  Do you do it, too?  Do you leave little bits of sandpaper in the rooms you're not currently working on?  How about your brayer and x-acto blade dispenser?  Come on, you know you do.  Remove them!  Put them away!  Dust the dollhouse!  You want it clean and tidy--and empty--before you even touch your trim.  

The second thing I do is place the trim I want to use for a particular room inside that room.  Here, you want to do a little measuring.  For the crown moulding, do you need two strips or three?  Give yourself a little leeway (for cuts), not less than 2" but not more than 6".  It might seem like this procedure isn't necessary...you have a general idea of what goes where, maybe even a highly specific idea.  Do you really need to physically place everything where it's going to go, just so you can take it all back out again and cut it?  In a word, yes.  First, you're going to surprise yourself, when it comes to quantities.  You're going to need much more trim than you think in some rooms, and much less in others.  The last thing you want is to find out, half way through installing the trim, that you don't have as much as you need.  In this business, nothing is certain--sometimes manufacturers discontinue trim, and sometimes they actually change the pattern.  Once, I was working on a very elaborate roombox, and, halfway through cutting the trim, I discovered that I didn't have enough.  I ordered more of the same trim--I knew it was the same because I had the part number--from the manufacturer, but when it came, it was subtly different.  Much to my dismay, I learned that the manufacturer now cut that pattern out of a shallower blank.  The two trims, the old and the new, didn't match--I had to start again from scratch.  Second, you're going to get confused.  It gets harder and harder to remember, as time goes on, what trim goes where.  Trust me on this!

Now, grab some rubber bands and some sticky notes.  Gather up the trim for each room, one at a time, and gently bundle it together.  If the rubber band is too tight, then it can cut into the wood.  Write the name of the room on a sticky note, and slip it inside the rubber band.  Now, put the trim bundles aside.  I favor small plastic wastebaskets from Target for this purpose--they're cheap and useful, an awesome combination.  As you work on each room, you can take the trim bundle in question out of the wastebasket and use it.  This is a great method if you want to maintain a certain level of organization.  I often work with expensive supplies, or work on multiple projects at the same time, so organization is essential for me.  

A note on scrap wood: I keep two separate containers for scraps, one for basswood strip scraps and one for trim scraps.  Often, a particular piece of wood is too short for my current project, but perfect for a future project.  Wood is very expensive, so I try to get as much bang for my buck as I can.

The Doors!

Order matters, which is the main reason why planning is so important. In the first dollhouse I ever completed (notice I say "completed," not "began") I did each door only after I finished the rooms that it connected and I left the windows until absolute last. Needless to say, nothing ever looked quite right. Installing the doors first allows you to achieve a much tighter fit with all the trim in the room. Ultimately, you're going to end up with a room that looks much more like a room in a real house.

Today I'm going to talk about finishing a pre-made door. In the next couple of posts, I'm going to teach you how to make a variety of different doors from scratch. Trust me, you're a better woodworker than you think--within a few weeks, you're going to be a door making champion.

1. Pick a door, any door. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to assume that you're working with a standard Houseworks 6 light door. The term "light" actually refers to the 6 little inset panels in the door. But, regardless of what door you choose, the procedure is about the same so bear with me.

2. Sand that baby. The trick here is to be (don't I know it) firm but gentle. This should resonate with the parents out there: you want to get rid of the obvious flaws, but not push so hard that you rough off the beautiful, crisp edges. These are, after all, what make the door interesting. Start with a finer grit of sandpaper than you think you need, maybe 240, and go slowly. A little bit of sanding sponge (they tear pretty easily) works great to sand down those beveled edges.

3. If you're staining one side (or both sides) of the door, now's the time to do so. If you're staining (or painting) both sides, order isn't as much of an issue, but the reason you want to tackle the stain before the paint is, wood is porous! Any gesso or paint that gets on the wood now is going to stay there, and that's not really the look you want. Stain the door (remembering the sides of the door), and lay it aside to dry. After it dries, apply your first coat of varnish. I use matte or semi gloss spray varnish, here. Sprays, unlike liquids, don't leave brush strokes. It's very important, however, when working with a spray to apply very, very, very thin coats. Don't try to cut corners on this step. Waiting about 30 minutes between each coat, apply 3 thin coats of varnish. After the door is completely dry (usually about 2 hours), lightly sand the door with either 400 grit sandpaper or an extra fine sanding sponge. If you sand through to the wood, it's OK--you can fix it. Using a small brush, touch up the area with stain. If you're using a water based stain, then mixing a little bit of brown acrylic paint into it helps to thicken it up and increase coverage. And remember, real wood doesn't look completely uniform and that's what makes it so expensive.

4. Remove any dust from the crevices of the door with a clean, dry craft brush and repeat the sanding and spraying procedure. After the door is clean and dry, spray a single, final finish coat on and leave it to dry.

5. If you're painting the other half of the door, then now's the time to break out the masking tape. I use 3M painter's tape. It works well, but nothing's foolproof--this is a tough step. If you're using a pre-made door, you might want to consider staining or painting both sides of the door the same color. Run the tape around the sides of the door, creating as straight an edge as you can. Use your fingernail (or a scrap of wood) to gently press the tape into the door. You want to ensure a tight seal, here. The tape is going to give you a smooth division between the stain and the paint.

6. Break out the gesso and gesso that baby. After the gesso is completely dry, lightly sand the door. It should feel smooth to the touch.

7. Break out the paint. As with the walls, you want to start out with a slightly watery first coat--except around the edges of the door. Here, you want to apply the paint full strength, angling your brush strokes towards the tape. Once you're finished painting the door, set it aside to dry for at least a couple of hours. Once the door is dry, gently remove the tape. If you painted both sides of the door, you can use the same technique with the tape to separate the colors of paint from each other.

8. The frame of the door breaks into two parts: the lintel and the threshold. The lintel is the part that encases the door, and the threshold is the part that sits on the floor. In most houses, the threshold matches the surrounding floor--wander around your house and have a look. If, for example, you're going to be installing hardwood floors, then you might want to paint or stain the threshold to match. If you're going to be installing carpet, or tile, then you might want to paint it a brown or cream, to coordinate. In most houses, the lintel matches the trim on the door. Keep in mind that the lintel will be visible after you install the door.

9. Once you've finished the door, it's time to install hardware. If you're yearning for something other than the basic brass options, then my friends at Earth and Tree, www.earthandtree.com, have an awesome selection. Personally, I like to use something different every time.

10. Now, reassemble the door with the frame. It can be especially tricky to realign the threshold with the lintel, and I usually use a gluing jig for this step. If you don't have one, then small clamps work just as well.

Your door is ready to install. Personally, I don't use the trim that comes with pre-made doors, but that's a matter of personal taste. At this point, if you're using pre-made doors, you want to go through your house and install them all. If you're making doors from scratch, then tune in next time!

Painting the Walls

Believe it or not, this part is trickier than it seems. It's just paint, right? Do I really need to go there? When it comes to paint, the possibilities for disaster are pretty much endless. My personal favorites include obvious brush strokes, ridge marks and, my personal favorite, gloppy puddles that appear for no reason. Here are some thoughts on how to avoid these common pitfalls and make the most of your painting experience:

1. Start with good quality paint. Yeah, I know. But seriously, it does make a difference. A lot of people will tell you to start with a super expensive brush and, yeah, maybe that makes a difference. Considering as how I live on planet Earth, where I need to use my hard-earned money to buy things like groceries, I wouldn't know. I've found that the cheapo packs of craft brushes work just as well. Now, I don't get the ultra cheapo (like, 20 cents a brush) brushes, I get the slightly more expensive (8 bucks for 5) brushes. You can find packages of them at Michael's, emblazoned with inspiring names like "craft brush value pack." Basically, the difference is that these brushes are fake and the nice brushes aren't. The brushes with the white bristles (my personal favorite) are fake (faux, for you fancy people) white sable, just as the brushes with the reddish brown bristles are fake red sable. The bristles came off an assembly line, instead of from an animal. Apart from all other considerations, I can totally get behind not ripping the hair out of some hapless ferret by the roots. I don't dig hurting animals. Likewise, the bristles make it into the brush in basically the same way, too--they're gathered together in a big ponytail by a machine, glue is dabbed on the end of the ponytail by another machine, and they're inserted into a little metal cup. This little metal cup, called a ferroule, is then crimped shut by yet another machine. Finally, the ends are trimmed into a uniform shape. Voila, you've just achieved brush. Again, the difference is in the materials used--artificial glue instead of horse hoof glue (yes, "real" glue comes from horse hooves). One really good reason for studying art is that people can't BS you about materials quite as easily--a lot of "fine art" supplies exist to lure in suckers. Don't be one! Anyway, you can check out my work and decide for yourself if it sucks.

2. Decide, well in advance, what room is going to feature which colors. Nothing ruins even a really great paint job like poor planning. A neighbor of mine recently invited me over to admire her newly renovated kitchen. She'd spent a lot of money on it, and she'd gotten a great deal, at least when it came to workmanship: nicely crafted woodwork, expensive fixtures, professional paint job. The only problem was, everything in the kitchen was school bus yellow and candy apple red. I felt like I'd walked into a McDonald's. The moral of the story: coordinate! Remember, in a dollhouse, you can see all the rooms at once. For the Hampton, I chose a color I really liked, moss green, and worked around it. The master bedroom is blue, the library is yellow, and everything else falls somewhere in between on the color spectrum. Green (a mixture of blue and yellow) is the unifying theme.

Also, keep track of what other finishing materials you plan to use, when you select colors--what do you have in mind for the floors? The trim? I'm planning to use some stained woodwork, some painted woodwork, some carpet and some linoleum. I need to make sure that these choices are all going to blend in. For example, the stained woodwork is going to be mahogany, because mahogany--in addition to looking expensive--has a lot of yellow tones in it. It's going to go really well with my overall color theme. I tend to take materials on test-runs--as you can see, the carpet is just sort of hanging out in the master bedroom, while I get a feel for whether I like it there or not.

Also, note that I left a couple of the walls blank--I'm going to be installing floor to ceiling paneling. I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating--the more planning you do beforehand, the better off you're going to be later on. It's a pretty sick feeling when you realize, halfway through working on a room, that you have absolutely no idea how you're going to make it work with the rest of the house.

3. Mark off the ceilings (if you finished them in the last step) with masking tape. Duh.

4. Get some (clean!) water. Do not use brush water, people. Pour a little paint into a Dixie cup and add water until the paint is the consistency of heavy cream. Yes, you want it a little too watery for this step. The point is not to cover well, but to lay a solid base coat. Plaster (and all forms of gessoes are just reconstituted plaster dust) is extremely porous. If you use thick paint, then you're going to end up with blotchy, ridgy walls. Lay on your first coat of paint. It's not going to look great. Wait for it to dry, and lay on another coat. Wait for it to dry. Lightly--and I mean lightly--sand. I really like extra fine sanding sponges for this. Now, you can start using a little more paint and a little less water. The learning curve here is really steep--you're going to find that you get a feel for what you're doing really quickly. Build up coats until you achieve opaque coverage.

Some troubleshooting techniques:

Don't give into the temptation to rush. These first steps are the slowest, but they yield the best results.

If you see little "holidays" (white spots, blotchy spots, strange areas) appear after you've just laid on a nice coat of paint, don't try to touch them up. If you do, then you're going to end up with a royally painty mess on your hands. Sit on your hands if you have to, but wait until the walls are fully dry before you play touch-up.

OK, so you have blotches and ridges--now what? First, wait for the wall to dry. Grab some sand paper (For this, I tear off part of a fine sanding sponge), dip it in some clean water and gently sand over the area. Rub in a circular, not a back and forth, motion. Wipe off any stray grains from the sandpaper with a damp cloth. Once the area dries, lay on one or two light coats of gesso. After the gesso dries, you can lightly sand it with an ultra fine sanding sponge.

OK, so you have visible brush strokes--now what? Depends on how bad they are. If they're bad, see above. If they're visible to the eye, but not too bad to the touch, then lightly sand the wall with dry sandpaper. Again, rub in a circular motion. Remember, it's better to spend too much time on this step than too little!

Plastering the Walls

Everyone has their own personal preference, and I'm going to teach you mine. The most common method (which I dislike) is to use wallpaper 100% on every surface possible--the reason being, it's relatively easy. Once you get the hang of hanging wallpaper, you can speed through the house. Here, the good news and the bad news are the same news: you get professional results, but your house doesn't look very good. Too much wallpaper looks busy--all these little designs, side by side, are a lot for the eye to take in. Picking coordinated colors is a big issue in any dollhouse decorating project--unlike in a real house, where you see only one or two rooms at a time, in a dollhouse, you very often see all the rooms at once. Any plan should take this issue into account. To that end, I prefer to plaster at least some of the walls in any dollhouse I build.

OK, you're probably going to read on and go, "Is all this necessary? Why can't I just gesso and sand the plywood?" The answer is yes, it is and the reason you can't is, the grain of the plywood will raise and show through. No matter how many coats you apply, you're going to end up with gessoed plywood instead of dollhouse walls. It's really an issue of scale and, for me, being an obsessive perfectionist. The technique I describe here can be a little challenging to master at first, but becomes much easier over time and provides beautiful results. I promise you, with all these building and decorating techniques, the learning curve is very steep--you're going to be creating things you love in very little time.

To complete the basic finish work on the walls, you're going to need 9 things:

1. Artist's bristol board (vellum or smooth, it doesn't really matter)

2. Mod Podge

3. Gesso

4. A brayer (my brand preference is Speedball)

5. A rubber squeegee

6. Scissors or an X-Acto knife

7. A pencil

8. Trash bags

9. A cheap painter's brush

All of these things are available at any major craft store, such as Michael's. Ask for help if you can't find them all right away.

The first thing you want to do is lay down trash bags beneath your work area. This procedure can get messy, especially if you've never done it before. Make sure nothing valuable is lurking nearby.

Cut out pieces of bristol board the size of the room you're working on first. Don't forget, you can do the ceiling, too. Remove the pieces of bristol board for a minute and, using your painter's brush, slather some mod podge onto the surfaces of the room that you want to cover. Don't skimp--too much is better than too little. Remember, the idea here is to provide a good adhesion, not to look pretty. Below, you can see how the mod podge should look when it's on the wood--thick, visible, but not dripping.

Next, you want to apply the bristol board. Keep in mind, you need to work relatively quickly here--you don't want the mod podge to dry. After you've pressed each piece of bristol board into place, roll the brayer over it (using some solid downward force) to force the air bubbles and wrinkles out. You can also use the squeegee to get into tight spots, like corners. Keep going over the bristol board until it begins to feel dry to the touch--you don't want any last minute air bubbles appearing. A thick paper like bristol board can sometimes be challenging to work with, because it twists and buckles as it begins to dry. Anticipate this problem, and you're going to be home free.

After you're done with each room, go around the edges (don't forget holes for doors and windows!) and very gently wipe away globs of excess mod podge with a slightly damp paper towel. It's better to remove these globs now, when they're easy to remove, than wait until they dry.

After you're done with all the rooms you plan to do, make yourself a cup of tea and read a book for awhile. You should NOT do anything else until the bristol board is completely--and I mean completely--dry.

When the bristol board is completely dry, use an x-acto knife and a hard surface, such as a piece of plywood, to remove the excess paper. You can lightly--and I mean very lightly--sand along the edges with 240 grit sandpaper to remove any paper fluffies. Press the piece of plywood against the inside of the wall (against the bristol board you want to cut) and gently run your (very sharp) x-acto knife down along the edge. This way, you're removing the paper with as clean a cut as possible. You want to make very sure to avoid pulling or tearing, which is why it's so important to save this step until the bristol board is dry. Remove excess paper in window holes in the same way. Below is the Hampton with excess bristol board partially removed. Note that, here, I left some walls blank because I'm planning to use other treatments (such as wood paneling) on them.

The next step is to apply an even coat of gesso to the bristol board. Ultimately, you want to apply 3 coats, and make sure that the gesso dries completely between each coat! This is the "plaster" on the walls. Don't start trying to sand until you have at least 3 coats and, even then, be very careful--vigorous sanding is going to cut right through the gesso and rip up the bristol board underneath. If you find that you end up with gesso ridges on your walls, sand them down very lightly with wet sandpaper. A good way to avoid this problem is to keep the gesso a little bit runny by mixing it with water before you apply it. It's better to put on 5 thin coats than 3 gloppy coats.

After the gesso dries, lightly sand it with dry 240 grit sandpaper. You're now ready to paint!

A note on order: you'll notice that I haven't mentioned the floors, other ceiling treatments, or wallpaper yet. There's a good reason for this: gesso is not only messy, but also permanent. So is acrylic paint. You do NOT want to start installing your beautiful (and expensive!) treatments until you complete this step. Doing things in the proper order goes a long way to eliminating many of the common construction problems we miniaturists deal with. Don't worry, we'll get there soon!

Problem Avoidance!

Yes! You, too, can practice problem avoidance! It goes like this: before you put together the shell (or start doing anything, if it's already put together), practice a construction "dry run" in your mind. Where are the doors? Where are the windows? Is there any part of the house that's going to get blocked off? The Hampton features a "secret room" to the right of the bedroom and directly behind the bathroom--if I put it in before doing any of the finishing, then I'd pretty much be making it impossible for myself to paint the walls, add flooring or add a ceiling. Below is a picture of the floor without the walls, which form the secret room, installed.

Instead, I build the house without the secret room, and put the walls that form it aside for later. I'm not going to do all the finish work to the room before I install it, but I am going to do about half of it--the walls, flooring, and ceiling (but not the trim).

Pick Your House...

A great option for those of you who either don't want to waste time putting together a kit or find all those little bits and pieces intimidating is to purchase a pre-constructed shell. The dollhouse pictured here comes from my friends at Earth and Tree Miniatures, http://www.earthandtree.com/.

It's a wall-hanging dollhouse called the "Hampton." It's a great starter house, because it doesn't have a really challenging exterior (no windows!). It's relatively small, but it still has plenty of architectural interest. Over the next few weeks, I'll be turning this shell into some lucky doll's new home.

Which Dollhouse?

A note on selecting a dollhouse: start small! It's really tempting to, with your first or second house, set out to achieve all your construction and decorating fantasies. Finally, a chance to have that victorian parlor you've always wanted, install that really pretty wainscotting you've been saving, build a cute little window seat! You know what you're doing, after all, you have a number of room boxes under your belt. No! Stop! Intuitively, it might seem true that a 10 room dollhouse is really just 10 room boxes stuck together. It isn't. A dollhouse, even a small dollhouse, takes a LOT more work--and money--than you think. Things go wrong in any craft project, and in a dollhouse, those things can multiply exponentially--very quickly.

You're going to lay down flooring wrong, end up with inexplicable bubbles in your wallpaper, try a few new techniques that backfire horribly. A dollhouse can be, among other things, a huge money pit--and even worse than having to lay that pretty flooring you love so much twice is having to pay another 45 bucks for it. Pretty soon, you're stuck with a half finished dollhouse.

Trust me, I know--and if you think I'm the only one with a few half finished dollhouses under her belt, check eBay. A small dollhouse only seems boring until you take it out of the box and start to actually try to put it together--and start to freak out!

Before You Start...

This post marks the start in a series on how to build a dollhouse. You're going to be following along with me, dear reader, as I do just that. However, before we get to the fun stuff (watching me suffer), we need to get through a couple of preliminaries. Every book you read starts with the really boring "now preparation is important" speech, and I'm going to start that way, too. I'm going to start that way because, with the first couple of dollhouses I built--and never completed--I ignored it. I wanted to jump right in. I still do. The only difference is, now, I have a designated studio space so it's a little easier to do. But seriously, you need to pay attention to preparation. If you know anything about crafting, then you already know the basic "buy high quality glue"-type recommendations. I'm going to spare you those and, instead, give you my own list.

1. Designate a space for working on the dollhouse and nothing else. When I was in law school, my current dollhouse project lived on my kitchen table. This not only made for awkward dinner parties (my kitchen table was also my only table), but also for even more awkward crafting sessions. I'd have to unpack my supplies, work for an hour or two, and then pack them up again. I lost pieces, I forgot which moulding went to which room, etc. A good rule of thumb for space is, designate about twice as much as you think you're going to need--believe me, you're going to spread out.

2. Invest in some furniture--at a bare minimum, a table and a workbench. This doesn't have to be expensive. I still use the cheapo tables I bought at IKEA years ago, and they still work great. If you want a high-end workbench, Sears sells the entire Ultimate Garage series. It's affordable and sturdy. The idea here is, your dollhouse can live on the table and your tools can live on the workbench. If you have any extra money or space, consider investing in another workbench, to hold your "in progress" pieces--it's nice to be able to lay out all those little bits of molding you're sanding.

3. Invest in some organizational supplies. I buy all of mine at Target. Whether you use drawers, bins, whatever, find a way to keep your various woods, trims and other supplies seperate. I particularly love Target's small plastic kitchen organizers, little trays that are about 10" x 7". I have a ton of them (they cost about 1.50 each), and I put the bits for each room in a separate bin. That way, no matter how complicated things get, I'm still organized--and portable.

While it's tempting to go on and on about all the tools, tricks and storage ideas you need, I'm going to give it a rest. Lists like this are inherently difficult because everyone's at a different place in terms of available space, budget, and skill level. If you have any specific questions about tools, then ask me--and if you have some better ideas than mine, then please educate me (and my readers).