Westville Dollhouse Build Completed with Pictures

30 September 2006

Posted by Minis On The Edge

The Last Day

Today, I woke up with butterflies in my stomach! I can't believe this house is almost completed! I have to add clay to the base, flowers, and grass & trees and have it done TODAY!! 

I am so worried about accomplishing this. This house MUST ship Monday which means it has to be at the Pack N Mail place Tomorrow!

Well I started with the grass lawn and added it in some places. I then added paper clay because it takes a while to dry. I sculpted stone in the back foundation and fed the lead in wire through it. I also added clay to the chimney!

At 1:00 am, things were dry enough for me to paint. You gotta look at tomorrows blog to see it . I am Done!!!

30 September 2006 

Posted by Minis On The Edge

(Pictures Of Completed House)

I am so in love with this house! My customer is a Dream. She is so easy to please and she has been so kind the entire ride. I posted pictures every night and she always told me how much she likes it. I was so worried at first about if I would be finished in time and would she like.....Well as of today, she still has not seen the completed pictures but I found out that this is a gift from her AND her sisters!

This will be a gift for there mother's 80th Birthday and they promised to send me pictures of the event! I hope their mother love the house and find much delight in shopping for furniture and carpets for it.

Okay, I'll shut up and let you see the pictures. Tell me what you think of the house!! I painted the clay green to look like grass! 

It took me only 12 days total to complete the entire house. This is with me doing the regular things I have to do in life so this was not me working on the house all day every day. This blog was created to encourage those who love the looks of Greenleaf Kits but, once they open the box, they feel that the kit is too hard because they see all of the parts. Remember, by an inch, it's a cinch. By a Yard, it hard. Take it one step at a time and you can have a Fabulous house!

To see more detailed pictures of this dollhouse build, please click on the picture below.

by toppdollar

Thank you for viewing my blog~ Tracy 

Westville Dollhouse Build (Day 6 - 11)

30 September 2006 (Day six)
Posted by Minis On The Edge

"Houston, we have a problem"

Well, I talked to my customer on the phone and she did not picture the trim to be Hunter green around the windows. She wants it white. I am so worried because too many coats of paint can make an item look sloppy and because the green IS dark, I will have multiple layers on painted to prime and cover the dark color .

She only wants the shutters Hunter Green Well, I guess I missed that detail so today I started doing that. I also decided to add the shutters to the house (That's right more punching out wood pieces and sanding them and painting them) but the effect is WONDERFUL!! I Love the stark white background and then the shutters on top  

She also wanted me to make a wood fireplace for the living room and she wants window seats where the bays are. I think it will really add that special touch to this house!

I added paperclay and sculpted the bricks for the inside of the fireplace.

30 September 2006 (Day Seven)
Posted by Minis On The Edge

Fireplace Completed

Well today I painted the fireplace and I also added burning embers to it so that there will be a nice warm glow! 

 Here is one of it lit up

I also added the roof parts today! I am as a little busy bee

I don't like the gaps showing up in between the roof line and the siding. Though it is glued down correctly, it just don't look clean I can't have that So I added some wood strips. You can see one on the left side and the right side has not been added yet. I will paint this white too.  

30 September 2006 (Days 8 & 9)
Posted by Minis On The Edge

I have an Owie

My hobby knife decided to bite me hard today on my right thumb!!! Sheesh, why does these things happen when I cannot afford a delay? I also spent a while the other day in the doctors office with Rachel because she has strep throat again! The doctor treated me for it too so we are both on meds .

Moving right along anyway, I took a day off and waited a day to start working back on the house. I did this because I was feeling lousy and it takes 24 hours after you start meds to not be contagious.  I added window seats, the stair rail and more trim (to make the wallpapered rooms look more manicured ) and the closet door & front door and trim Ohh my!

I even started on the shingles! I have decided to move the position of the chimney since the fireplace is in between the two living room windows, I thought the chimney should be there also. My customer says so far she is so pleased with the house. She has no idea how much she is encouraging me! Every night I go to bed, I look at the list of things that still need to be done and I feel I will NEVER get it done in time!! The good thing is normally, I work well under pressure.

I only blogged this because I wanted to show everyone what determination can lead you too. Besides going crazy, you can end up with a fully completed house built, painted, electrified AND wallpapered with a base in a matter of days (not weeks or months or years)

This shot show the inside. 

I am pleased at the time of taking this picture . When I downloaded it on the computer, I noticed the walls look unfinished and shabby! I can't have that happening now, so do I run to hobby lobby AGAIN? Of course!

The window seats are removable just in case my customer wants to change the fabric.

 Shingles were started before I dozed off to sleep

I also decided to Check to be sure that all of the lights are still working before I go to sleep.

30 September 2006 (Day 10)
Posted by Minis On The Edge

Calling All Shingles

 I added all of the shingles today and added clay to the foundation of the house (Three sides) I fed all of the wires to the bottom of the house so that a Power strip could be used OR you could add a strip of tape wire and solder the hardwire to the tape wire (I will show this on my next house). For this house, I used a power strip because of the time constraints . I am loving it though! I also added the Chimney! Notice in the picture that some of the shingles are different colors naturally. This will not be a problem once they are stained. You will see that in the end.

30 September 2006 (Day 11)
Posted by Minis On The Edge

The Base and Touch Ups

  Well today is a challenge! I still have the base to do. My Customer wants this house to have the appearance of a lawn on the base and I am thinking up a good way to create this effect using paper clay.

Mean while, I did touch up paint, checked all lights again and stained all of the shingles! I have to have this house at the Pack N Mail place on Friday! I think I will have it done on time  

I could sit and stare in the house all night! Lights make the house look so real!

I even started playing with my dolls just to see what it would look like with "life" added to the house

This is Anna coming up the stairs (which is carpeted with plush hunter green carpet)

On the porch

Thank you for stopping by to View My Blog! You can see better pictures of this blog by clicking the picture below:

by toppdollar

Westville Dollhouse Building Blog (Days 1 - 5)

Day 1

30 September 2006 (late night/early Morning)

Posted by Minis On The Edge

I received a order for a Beacon Hill on September 18th. The house is to be for my customers Mother who was brought up during the Depression and always wanted a dollhouse. This will be a surprise gift for her. My customer needed the house completed and delivered by October 6th.  Could I do it. Well I said of Course I can  . But after finding out the size of of her mother's house, she decided that she wanted me to build the Westville house instead. And then the fun began!!

I ran downstairs to my garage and pulled out the Westville kit and opened it. As usual, I checked all of the sheets to be sure I had them all. All the while, I was thinking about my customer. How sweet of her to do this for her Mother! So I started to get nervous. Will I meet her expectations? She want the house to be White the trim to be Hunter Green. Of course, I told myself last year that when I build this house again, it would be ALL paper clay. Well, maybe I can get a little bit in but my customer wants it to be built as it is on the box so I must restrain my creative ideas!

Join me for the fun! Because I was under such time restraints, I did not blog while I was building. I just did not have time to do it so, I took pictures for the customer (I create a special "private" album as I build custom houses for customers so they can comment and see what I am doing as I build).

These are the picture from my first day! The shell went together so fast that this is the only picture I took. I blinked and it seemed all of the walls were up!

She mentioned she would love for me to electrify the house so I am doing that. First I drill a hole on the first floor ceiling and the 2nd floor "floor"

I then pull the wire through that

I did this for all of the rooms. I then cover the wire with tape to keep them flat and to be sure that they are covered when I add the glue to cover the wire with the hardwood floors I am using

This is what the house looked like at the end of Day one:

30 September 2006 (Day 2)

Posted by Minis On The Edge  

Today I selected the wall paper. My customer says her mother has flower wallpaper. She has blue flowers in one, forest green and she also has a yellow colored wallpaper in here house. So I looked through my big stash and came up with these

 

I add my wallpaper as I build. To me this is the easiest way and the neatest way to add the wallpaper. I sure wish Linda lived closer to me! I added the bay windows today too and there sure are a lot of gaps here. I took out my handy dandy spackle to fill those spots. I tell you, this stuff really does a great job for sure!

30 September 2006 (Day 3)
Posted by Minis On The Edge 

 Today I added the window sills & Trim to this beautiful house. I love the style of this house!

This was all l did today. It seems like just a little bit but you gotta remember that each one had to be punched out and sanded then painted. I am wondering will I be finished in time?

I also decided to add the siding to the porch so that I could add the door trim. I had a problem with the window & siding. I did not like how it was butting up and decided I have to do more cutting than I anticipated:

30 September 2006 (Day four)
Posted by Minis On The Edge

The bays are looking a bit too plain to me! I keep looking at this house and trying to figure out what I want to do with it. My customer does not want paper clay on the bay . I gotta put on my OTHER creative hat to figure out something. Meanwhile, I decided to add all of the siding on the house now. It is easier to do this now instead of waiting till the roof is on. I also tape down all of the lose wires now and cover them with siding.

30 September 2006 (Day 5)
Posted by Minis On The Edge 

Well, I came up with an idea for those boring bays!! I took out my spackle and found my brass stencils and decided to add some details to the rectangles that are in the bays.

I also started painting the house. As I started doing this, I decided that the Bays were still too plain and I decided to add some wood rope trim to the top parts of the house.

 I am Moving my dollhouse Build blogs to this blog to help other find my many projects online. Hope this is able to help all of you out there who get too overwhelmed to complete the build. The Next Blog post will show the other days of this build.  Thank You For Following Along with this Blog!

***Edited to add****

I just looked in my webshots albums and discovered I do have better pictures of the complete build (which has more shots than I blogged previously) You can see that album by clicking the picture or link below:

by toppdollar