The Garfield Dollhouse Walls

After over a month of working on my real house, I am able to return to work on the Garfield. The first step was reorganize, as I had moved things around so much in my spare room that I felt lost.

I am at the point on the Garfield to install the walls, but wait.......there are many "must do's" before I reach for the glue. The front left corner ( the entry area ) on the main floor of the house will be very difficult to reach if all the walls and flooring are assembled. I must do a lot of the interior decoration first, THEN assemble the walls. On top of that, I wanted to paint the exterior before assembly, in order to assure complete coverage. So now, I will confuse you, as I have confused myself. This is not as simple as following the directions of construction, but I will try to keep things in some semblance of order.

The interior of the entryway, the living room, and the room, called in the plans "dining room", will all end up as one large room with like design. I have chosen a wallpaper from a "printables" site, an art nouveau print with doves on it in mixed colors of blue ( shown here ). I want the top third of the walls to be the wallpaper with the bottom two-thirds a stained beadboard and trim . Just in case there are gaps in the beadboard, I stained the walls that will be behind the beadboard the "Cabernet" stain, so the gaps will not show too much. After that dried, I flipped the walls over and painted the exterior of the house a dark tan color ( "Executive" from True Value ), putting on two coats.

That is where I am sitting right now and, before I move on, will do a bit of cleanup on the walls, removing the paint from the edges and slots so they'll fit smoothly, and sand any spots that may need a bit....I know there are a few, since I painted outside and got a few cottonwood seeds stuck in the paint.

Still to do before trying to put things together, think and think.......I know I must wallpaper at this point, but I also must prepare the 1st floor ceiling and the 2nd story flooring before assembling. This is where it seems to be so much to think about...the "which comes first" for Garfield. Well, no hurry. While I read somewhere it only takes 20 hours to build this house, the painting, etc. was not included in that time......just finding the right plan of action takes a long time. Perhaps those of you that have built the Garfield before me will offer some hints, as my mini-friend, Sumaiya, has done......you are more than welcome to, please and thank you.