THE DOLLHOUSE - PART 2.

As you know, sometime ago, I purchased a Dura-Craft San Franciscan dollhouse kit. If you've never built a Dura-Craft dollhouse before, the first thing you should know about these kits is that they are not for beginners and/or those who lack woodworking skills or who lack access to someone who does have woodworking skills and who is willing to assist with assembly.

Mott's Minishop has this to say about Dura-Craft dollhouses:

"Though they are complete kits, usually with everything needed to complete the house as shown in their pictures including siding and shingles, they are more complicated to put together than more expensive kits. Larger models include press-wood used in some parts of the house for walls and/or floors. Also, in some models, instead of solid wall pieces, you are given strips of wood that you must first glue together before you can tilt them up into place to assemble the frame of your house. And though several of the models come with working windows, they are NOT pre-assembled windows. You must put them together and each window and door can have as many as 10-15 individual parts. Smaller models are made from 1/8" die-cut mahogany plywood."

Fortunately, my husband, John, has built a real house from scratch, so he is fully equipped with all the necessary woodworking skills to assemble a dollhouse. Even so, assembly has been slow, not only because we've only worked on the dollhouse for short periods of time, but also because a lot of the work, while not difficult, has proved tedious and time consuming, such as assembling all the doors and windows. The actual hard part was subsequently fitting the bay windows.

Here is a photo of my dollhouse during that process:


I've chosen different colors for my dollhouse than what Dura-Craft used for its model. As you can see, I've painted my own dollhouse a deep teal, accented with garnet and seafoam green.

Because the San Franciscan has what I consider to be a couple of drawbacks, John and I have also, as we've gone along, made some modifications to my dollhouse, such as the installation of full interior walls complete with doors (Dura-Craft supplies only three-quarter walls without doors), and a large dormer in the top story, which provides a great deal more space for the smallest room. We've raised the roof on the tower, as well.

We did try the Magic Brick product Dura-Craft supplied for the foundation, but as I wasn't happy with the result, John later removed the Magic Bricks (they scraped off fairly easily), and I bought sheets of Houseworks real clay bricks to use instead. So far, we've got those on one side of the foundation, and I'm quite pleased with them, as I think they look much more realistic and far more in keeping with the scale of the dollhouse.

Once we finish bricking the other side of the foundation, the exterior of my dollhouse will finally be complete. Then we'll begin the process of installing all the electrical work, which must be done before wallpapering and otherwise decorating the interior.

All in all, I'm finding construction of my dollhouse to be an enjoyable creative experience. I'll keep you apprised of our progress.

Read The Dollhouse - Part 3.
Read The Dollhouse.