Not Much Here

Oh, I've only been sanding, painting, and staining. How many times can one make that sound interesting? I've got a big pile of parts, I'm cleaning them up, sticking them in their spots to see how it'll look and either staining or painting the part, and placing it in a little tray until it's time to glue them in...there you go. It'll stay that way until tomorrow.

Today, my good friend, Melissa, is taking me on a birthday adventure. My day was August 31st and our schedules haven't worked together until today. I have no idea where we're going, how long I'll be gone, what we'll be doing, or anything else. I was told to wear comfortable shoes and nothing else. I am so very curious about what's to happen. The best I can say is that any time I am with Melissa and anything she has ever done for me has always been fun and heartfelt. She's a special lady to me and it's gonna be good. I'll let you know.

Scrapping and Journaling

I spent the better part of yesterday at my friend, Angie's, house, working on my scrapbook for the Garfield. I got four pages done, with journaling, and am almost current with my progress in building the house.



In my idle time before and after going there, I sanded and sanded trim pieces that will go into the Dining Room and Library...44 all total. Each window has 4 pieces, each door 3, and there are 2 doors that need sanding. Even though the store bought doors come pretty clean, there are always some rough spots, especially on the inset panels. There are also kitchen bay pieces and tower pieces.



The kitchen bay is to be assembled directly on the house and it'll be at such an angle that getting into it to decorate will be terribly awkward, both reaching and seeing. I had wanted to cover the walls with the same fabric, but realize that will be harder than I want to mess with, so I've found a matching paint and will get her done that way, needing only touch up once it's assembled. Even that will be a pain. I've chosen an acrylic called "Wedgewood Green" and have started the painting of the section that'll need it on the body of the house and the bay sides pieces.



Today, I'll do more staining and then varnishing. I hope to have a nice pile of trim ready and spend a day just installing it.

Back to the journaling part...a member of one of the online forums had asked if anyone kept a journal. I have the scrapbook, which I do "wallpaper" the pages, but I don't do any fancy details. I use the little journaling cards and document the photos. I've also been keeping a notebook that has pages of this blog that I print out every so often. I need to kind of catch up on that actually. And I have a notebook/inventory of each house I have built with a running cost of the construction and then the furniture and accessories. My very first house, 30 years ago, the journaling was started in an already bound book. I ended up with 3 volumes of books..."The Dogwood Plantation" trilogy. HA.

The End Wall

I have not committed to the wall coverings in the 2nd story hallway, though I have printed out the "wallpaper". Since it takes so much ink, I'm pretty sure that I'll use it, but am waiting for me to think more positively about it. In the meantime, I'm doing other things that can be done.

I've added the end wall to The Garfield....it closes up the Dining Room and the Library..and I finished covering the walls to both rooms. I'll root around and find the trim pieces or use whatever trim components that will be extra and get them cut, stained, varnished, and installed.

We all know how many mini things there are that often get overlooked or need re-doing, how many thoughts of something we'd like to try, and how many ideas pop up while we're doing something else. Like many people, I keep a running list of "things to do" on my work table, a 8x10 legal pad, and it is full of those thoughts. At this point, there are 3 pages of "things to do" and I guess it's time to do some of them, while I'm waiting for my mind to make itself up about the walls in the hall. I could probably fill up a month's time doing the little things.

Yesterday, my husband started on his annual Autumn yard display. He gets some hay bales and decorates around them for Halloween/Thanksgiving/Autumn. The neighborhood kids and cats love them. While he was doing that, I got out the "around the house" decorations and started putting them out. It involves packing up knick knacks out right now that'll be in the way and too cluttered. They won't be seen again until after Christmas. CHRISTMAS!!!! Not all that far away and it's all made me realize that I'm going to have to completely put up things in this spare room to make room for Christmas boxes of decorations, presents, supplies...you know how it is. It means that I'll have to put away most of my dollhouse tools and supplies because they'll just be in my way. Like I said...tiny house...and, for me, Christmas takes priority over anything.

Well, I certainly can't put away Garfield...I couldn't even get it out of this room without major pains, so it'll remain on it's 4 ft. long table and I'll pack up it's supplies and toys and store them under that table. I'll have to move The Alison, Jr. out of the dining area and into the spare room to make room around the diningroom table. I have another 2 months before it's absolutely necessary. I now have a card table up. I use that for my working space, spreading out parts for staining and painting, cutting and assembly. Once it's put up, my working on the house will be limited until January, when everything Christmas gets packed up and stored for another year.

So, back to Garfield, the next few days will be small chores and nothing very exciting, but, I'm sure, will have lovely effects on the house. I'm going to ty my hand a plaster casting, using the pin I found in the antique store. As Holly has pointed out, the dining room will look good with 2 of those and the casts will be easier to work with, but I do need to learn a few things about it first.

Today's a scrapbooking day...I'll be updating my Garfield book with photos and journaling. Isn't it amazing how many things we have to learn to "play house"? Wish I could get paid for all this knowledge and expertise.

Walls, Doors, Walls, Part 2

I have succeeded in ripping this Garfield new ones....walls and door frames, that is. The original doors were about 2" wide, not enough for any good sized resident to get through comfortably. They now are Houseworks door suitable, after doing a lot of trimming. I did have to trim some of the casings too, to make it all work, but it'll look just fine. I don't know if you can tell, but in the 4th photo, the light shines on a wall that is behind the door. That's the wall in the master bedroom I was telling you about that gets walked slap into when you go in the door. It's about 1 1/2" behind that door and you'd have had to make an immediate left turn to enter into the bedroom proper. The wall extends up into the 3rd floor tower and is essential up there, but not for the second floor. I will have to assure good glue contact between it on the 3rd floor to maintain the structure of the tower. .....it'll be out of there as soon as Ed wakes up and I can make a lot of noise sawing. ( It's only 6am and he's in the room next door. SSSHHH ) Yes, there is a space empty over each door. I will make frames for transom windows there for each, though the plans only called for one.

I am now free to stain those doors, after a little more cleanup sanding, and paper those walls. I have to decide which paper I want.....one is a printie, the other is paintable wallpaper that Kim Hammond sent me. I will be complimenting the baby blue carpet runner on the stairs and what is yet unlaid on the hallway floors with whatever my choices become.

Oh, there WILL be a trim around the rims of the stairwells, both on the ceilings and the floors to cover up the rough/mixed colored/material edges. That's still a long way from now. I've got to get it right first before I decide what needs to be hidden.

Doing these walls was very frustrating and hard work, but I am so-o-o pleased that I made those changes. The originals just didn't make sense to me. I've tried to look at it from the prospective that real people live there and need to be comfortable. Leaving the Master bedroom as it was originally planned would have many a person say a few unkind words and maybe even cause an injury. It's all safe and logical now.

Walls, Doors, and Walls

I have spent the day trying to get the walls for the 2nd floor to work right, but am doing things that are NOT part of the directions. To get to the walls, I had to first make sure the floor fit correctly, which took some whittling and trimming. Finally, after lots of whittling, the floor fit perfectly. On to the walls, which took more and more whittling and trimming. I'm moving a wall and had to trim some of the top of the staircase newel and banister that presses up against the master bedroom wall. Bought a door from Hobby Lobby and it'll have to have the casings trimmed some to fit, but it'll go. The wall to the second bedroom was tougher. It was crooked, tabs WAY too big, the doorway was too small to fit a store bought door and, when I trimmed the wall and attempted to fit it into the stairwell, the doorway and transom window ( both held on by only a small piece of wood ) broke off. Oh, well, I can fit a piece in there, but I don't know now about the transom. Finally, I got the wall to fit perfectly in it's spot and with the master bedroom wall connection. Now, I'm fitting the doors to fit the spaces, removing only enough casing to make it work.

Now all that sounds quick enough, but it took hours, not just the work, but life continued along with it. Tomorrow, I'll have the doors finished and can move on to painting and wallpapering. I'm still days from gluing those wall to the house.

Boy, is it fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Newel Caps and other Miscelleny

This is the first floor landing. Sumaiya asked about the newel caps and I promised her better photos of them. The flat square was provided with the Garfield kit. I found the brass jewelry "whatever you call them" and the wooden mushroom looking caps at Hobby Lobby...a bunch in a baggie for a dollar or so. ( It's obvious I don't do photos well; there's a lot of glare showing little white flecks that aren't really there. ) I will, of course, do the same thing for the 2nd floor staircase. The bead mats I found came in real handy for this...I had to add the brass thingie to the wooden cap first and then top the square piece. The mat kept things from rolling around.

I've started sanding the second floor partitions. I don't like the door arrangements, so I'm going to do some destruction before I do the construction.

First, to enter into what appears to be the main bedroom to the left of the staircase, you get off the stairs and turn left immediately into the skinny doorway. If you go through that door, you instantly face a wall for the tower, which is absolutely necessary, if only for the 3rd floor. I'm going to whack that wall off, at least to the point where I can fit a standard Housework's door into the spot, though I'll have to trim down the door casing some. It'll mean I'll have to build a 3" wide wall section to connect it to the stairway partition, but that's no problem. It all looks easy enough and worth the shot at doing it.

Next, is the entry into the other bedroom, which is also though a skinny door. I'll do surgery on that door frame, too, to allow for a Houseworks door to be used, again needing to trim some of the door casing. There is a transom window that'll need some adjustment or maybe completely covering up, though I sure like and want to keep it. I need to get there to make that decision.

Neither of these adaptions are going to be tough, but they'll take some time and patience. The master bedroom wall that I'm trimming is attached already, so cutting it will be in a limited space, fitting the tools and my arm in there will be awkward, and I'll probably have to stand on a chair to reach it ( or put the whole house on the floor, which would certainly be safer for me, but open game for Aimee, the cat. The other 3 will leave it alone, I'm sure )

Then, again, I must decorate the hallway walls before I install them and I keep changing my mind with what to do. I'll pop up with the final answer while I'm tearing all the walls apart. The hallway has both a french door and a removable bay. Unlike the first floor entry bay, I'm going to keep this bay removable. It's not in the same order of the directions, but I'll work on those while I'm working on the hallway, so I can keep my thoughts all together. Besides, building this baby hasn't been completely by the directions to this point. Why start now?

I've realized that I've not always explained what I was doing, which was the point to the blog in the first place, so I'm going to try posting every day, even if some of what's been done is minor and not worth a hoot. I love, I love this Garfield house. I hope that you are enjoying watching it go up. I sure am.

Looking Down From The Second Floor

All three views are looking down from the 2nd floor. The photos looking up were fairly dark and you couldn't see much. The carpet runner is a simple flannel, cut to 1 3/4" wide with a satin ribbon on each edge. The color matches the blues on the 1st floor and the walls in the hallway on the 2nd floor ( but they're not yet painted. ) I did add newel post caps, except on the 2nd floor itself. I'm waiting to add the walls first. I know I'll knock them off if I don't wait. In one of the photos, you can barely see a brass ornament between the stair and the post cap. I'll take better photos of the 2nd floor staircase and hope they'll show up.

One of the 2nd story floors ( the part over the Dining room is done and ready to install. I had some problems with the ceiling of the 1st floor side and had to do it twice. I'm waiting until I get the main floor section done and installed before I show the photos. It won't be long.

I've been pretty busy with other things that indirectly affect the Garfield. I cleaned up my dust bunny covered computer area and installed USB pots so that I can connect both the photo printer and the camera. The dust bunnies were the hard part. Some of them could have carried off my cat! After doing that, I realized I need to be brutal and clear out some spare wood parts and other things around my work area.

I'm also getting out my winter clothes and putting up summer...it's snowed in some parts of Colorado and it's getting down in the 40's at night, so it's time.( How that affects the Garfield is easy. The clothes are in storage boxes under the twin bed in this room and I had to move supplies that are blocking the way to get under the bed.....I told you, it's a small house. )

One day this week, I'm going to a scrapping party at my friend, Angie's, house and my Garfield scrapbook will get caught up. I've printed out many photos and I want to get it up to date or it'll get carried away from me. Plus, I need to print out some pages from this fun blog and keep that up to date too. When I die, whoever gets Garfield will get these books telling it's story. ( While he's way too young right now, I'm secretly hoping my grandson, Mark, will one day have a little girl and it can be hers. )

Something else that I must do, but has nothing to do with Garfield, is to cut down some foliage in the garden and I'd best do it now!!! It's a mess and I need to clean it up so the Autumn plants will look better, so I'm putting the Garfield work aside for a few days. ( I can't play dollhouse ALL the time, though I wish .............................)

Well, off to act like I'm doing all those things.