‘Tis a Puzzlement! DIY Dollhouse Siding for a Gable

Tags

Design, DIY, Dollhouse

The last post covered the fairly straightforward process for applying lap siding to a dollhouse–and ended when I got to this tricky bit.  I entitled this post “‘Tis a puzzlement” because that’s what the King of Siam (played by Yul Brynner in “The King and I”) always said to Anna when he didn’t know the answer to something.  It became a favorite quote in our family.  Here’s how I solved this puzzlement . . .

Make a template!  Luckily my gable had an easy pitch to it, and a sheet of sturdy white 12×12″ scrapbooking paper fit perfectly.

I used my thumbnail (fingers are such useful tools!) to crease along the line where I needed to cut.  Once I had cut, I replaced the paper template on the dollhouse to be sure it fit.  Then I labeled it so I’d be sure to remember which side to use.

The next step was to rule lines on the template the same width as I had used for the dollhouse.  I laid the template on the dollhouse and continued drawing lines on the paper going up from the last line on the dollhouse side.  Using the lines will keep the lap siding straight.

After the siding was glued on up to the bottom of the gable, I checked the fit of the template one last time.  Measure thrice–cut once!

It was time to break out my handy junk cardboard that I use to protect my table top from messy stuff.  I laid the template on the cardboard and sprayed it generously with spray-on adhesive.

Carefully peeling up a corner of the tacky template, I transferred it to a clean piece of scrapbook paper, sticky side up.

 

 

I laid my first siding strip along the lowest line drawn on the template.  It’s VERY important to leave enough siding strip hanging over both ends of the template.  The first time I didn’t, and although it looks fine when you’re looking at it, after you cut it you will discover gaps where the siding didn’t reach.  I can’t explain why (probably because I was terrible in math!), but I know from experience!  If you line up your siding strips like I have in this photo, you will be okay.

  I continued laying siding strips one on top of the other, just like on the side of the house.  I did not add any extra glue; the spray adhesive was enough to hold the strips in place.

I continued all the way up to the top of the gable, finishing off the tiny piece at the very tip-top.

Having goofed on my first try, I held my finished template up to the light to be sure that all of the paper was adequately covered.  It was!

Very gently I flipped the template over and carefully cut along one side . . .

. . . then the other.  No, I do not have magic scissors!  I couldn’t cut and photograph with my right hand at the same time, so I had to prop the scissors.

Once I was done cutting around my template, this is what it looked like on the back.  And by the way, I saved the discarded end pieces in case I need a filler piece later.

One final time to see if everything fit properly before I glued it down.

Laying the template wood side down I began to carefully peel away the paper.  One place I read online said to glue the paper directly to the dollhouse, but I was afraid it wouldn’t adhere well.  My method is a bit more labor intensive, but I think it will hold better.

I continued to hold down the wood strips as I peeled the rest of the paper template away.  Note that the strips will be a bit tacky still from the spray-on adhesive.

I’m missing a step in the photos here, so you’ll just have to take my word for it!  Holding the template-shaped section of wood strips very carefully, I flipped it over wood side up.  The strips separated a bit, but stayed in order.  That’s what’s important!  One by one, I hot-glued each one down exactly like the rest of the siding had been done.

This one little piece was still sticking out, so I used my fine-pointed pencil to draw a line along the edge of the dollhouse on back and then carefully cut it off.

Here’s the finished side of the dollhouse.

And here it is, close up.  I was pretty excited at how well it turned out!  I’m sure you’re doing exactly what I did–scratching your head and saying, “How on earth could something that looked so tricky be that easy to do?!”

I have five simple words:  The. Power. of. the. Internet.

There’s one more gable on the front of the house along with four odd-shaped sections of roof I’ll have to put shingles on, so I’m really thankful that I discovered the idea of using a template.

Stay tuned to see how I handled siding the front of the house with five windows, a door, a porch roof and pillars to work around . . .

 

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Construction in Narnia–Again!

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Design, DIY, Dollhouse, Grandkids, Inspiration, Spare Oom

Back in April when this view of tender foliage was outside the window of Spare Oom, I started on a new construction project in Narnia.  Then life got in the way, and construction ground to a halt.  Now that working inside to avoid the suffocating heat of summer seems like a brilliant idea, I thought it was time to take my construction project public.  Maybe that will keep me at it!

“WHAAAAT?” you might well ask.  “Didn’t you just finish creating Narnia in your attic?  What could you possibly be building now?”  Well, here’s the answer to that very good question . . .

I’m building a house!  A dollhouse, yes, but a house!  This time I’m the general contractor, builder and decorator!

I bought this house before we moved to France in 1990, and it sat in storage with our furniture until we came back to the States in 2001.  At the time I thought I would decorate it in French style.  But it sat . . . and sat . . . and sat . . . in a closet.  Then in 2008, two things happened.

1)  We left my beloved Victorian house in Tennessee and moved out here to the country.  It was my idea to move, but oh, was it hard to leave my dream house!

2)  Our first grandchild, a girl, was born.  Now at last I had a really good reason to pull out the dollhouse and get to work.

But of course the work of turning this place into a farm took precedence, and somehow the dollhouse languished again.  Then earlier this year during the process of furnishing Narnia, Charis (now 4 1/2) saw the dollhouse and was enchanted.

That was all it took!  I realized that the idea of making a French house no longer seemed so appealing.  Instead, I would rather recreate my beloved old Victorian.  So I ordered lap siding and set everything up to begin construction–again!

So this is an invitation to join me up in Narnia while I build a house-within-a-fantasy-land-within-a-house.  And when I’m done with this, there’s an old Lionel train waiting for its own world to come to life in the basement.  So there’s plenty of magic still left in Narnia, just waiting to be breathed into life!

The Wardrobe Gets Around

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Aslan's Tent, Cair Paravel Library, Dawn Treader, Decor, Design, Narnia, Spare Oom, The Lodge, Wardrobe

My niece, who works in the computer field, just had a post on our Narnia project published on the Homeketeers blog.  Be sure to check it out!  (It’s published under her nom de plume.)  For anyone who’s new to the story of how we turned our attic into Narnia, my niece’s account is clear and concise–and a good way to find out about it without reading through about 75 posts!

Finishing the Dawn Treader Berths, Part II

Tags

Colors & Paint, Dawn Treader, Decor, Design, DIY, Grandkids, Narnia

The carpet remnants from Cair Paravel took care of protecting the bottoms of the bed rockers, but the beds themselves were still ugly bare plywood.  But I had a plan for that!

We had four boards cut to length at Lowe’s which I stained and poly’d the same as the berths.  Herb (by the way, the last picture of him ever at age 59!) is my go-to man when there’s drilling to be done.  First he drilled two holes in each board so we could screw the pulls in.  This had to be done first since the screws would be caught between the board and the bed once the board was screwed in.

Here’s one of the trim boards with the lion pulls screwed in and five more (silver-colored) 2″ wood screws attaching the board to the side of the bed.  We’ll take a closer look in the following photos.

A close-up of one of the lion head pulls from Van Dyke’s Restorers (see the Purveyors page).

A close-up of the lion pull in the finished trim board.

Herb counter-sank all the screw holes, a time-consuming operation, but one that enabled all exterior decoration to easily cover the screws since they were level with the board’s surface.

In the middle of each board I applied a wood decoration from Hobby Lobby.  I used Aleene’s Quick Dry Tacky Glue which dries quickly.

The weight of a full can of polyurethane was sufficient to press the wood decoration down while it dried.

Here’s a close-up of the finished decoration.  These cost about $3 each, much cheaper than anywhere else I had seen ones like them.  I stained them, then gilded them with Rub ‘n Buff, then poly’d them.  I was really pleased with how they turned out.

The final step for each trim board was to cover up the silver wood screws.  I bought Antique Daisy upholstery tacks at Ace Hardware for this purpose.  I gently hammered one tack directly above the screw with the nail part almost touching the edge of the screw.

I hammered another tack in below the screw.  Still a bit of screw showing, so . . .

on each side of the screw I hammered in another tack.  This time I moved them a smidgen further away from the edge of the screw.  I could have moved them further away so they wouldn’t have been on top of the first tacks, but I liked the bas relief effect of layering them on top.

Here’s a look at one end of the trim board with the screws hidden by upholstery tacks.

Here’s a full-length view of the finished trim board on Kol’s bed.  My fancy upholstery tacks are actually hidden by the curtains, but at least I’m not bothered by the thought of ugly silver screws under there!

This photo of Charis’ bed is a bit dark, but it shows how well the trim board ended up matching the paneling of the berth, making the bed look built-in.

I had forgotten to include photos of the ends of the berths earlier, so here’s a shot with the little lanterns I got at World Market hanging on the crown hooks.  I will NEVER put candles upstairs, but little battery-operated tea lights make perfect night lights for the kids–lots more fun in a lantern than something you plug into the wall.

The kids arrive tonight for a weekend of festivities celebrating Didi’s 60th birthday, and thanks to some work from Didi, their beds are FINALLY, completely done!

Aslan is ready and waiting for the kids.  Naughty lion, he nearly gave Herb a heart attack when he went upstairs and saw him laying there so lifelike!  It’s a good thing he’s a pretty healthy 60 year old!

 

Finishing the Dawn Treader Berths

Tags

Dawn Treader, Decor, Design, DIY, Grandkids, Narnia

At the very end of December, Herb built the rocking bed platforms for the kids’ Dawn Treader berths . . . and the ugly plywood has been glaring at me ever since.  Once I got my health back and got Herb’s 60th birthday planned, I finally got down to finishing the beds.  

Charis and Kol spent the day earlier this week, and after their nap, all she wanted to do was color.

So Kol came upstairs with me to be my helper/observer while I worked on the beds.

First I flipped his bed upside down.  Here’s what the rocker on one end looks like.  It’s great–except I’ve been afraid to pull the beds out from the wall to make them up, for fear of scratching the floor.

The first step (I learned the hard way by not doing it first on the first rocker) was to trim off all the excess carpet “shag” along one long edge of carpet remnant.  It’s much easier to do this off the rocker than on!

The next step was to line the carpet remnant up along the edge of the rocker.  I made sure my nice straight carpet edge was on the most exterior edge of the rocker; this way any shagginess in my cutting technique would be hidden under the shadow of the bed on the interior edge.

Then I took a small metal staple and positioned it close to the end of the rocker . . .

. . . and hammered it in all the way.  (Sorry there’s no photo of the actual hammering step, but I didn’t think Kol could aim the camera well enough–and I KNEW I couldn’t while hammering!)  I repeated this step about every 3-4 inches along the rocker.  As you can see, a dimple is left where each staple goes in.

The final step was to use a utility knife to cut away the excess carpet along the one end and along the inside edge of the runner.  Then I brushed away the little shreds of carpet fiber that littered the floor all around.

And that’s all it took to protect the bottoms of the beds!  Each time Kol saw a staple disappear into the carpet fiber he wanted to come look for it.  We had to look really hard to find the staple down in all that plushness.  There’s no chance any metal is going to scrape our nice Dawn Treader deck!

Charis and Kol can now rock (themselves) to the rhythm of the waves as they sail from Narnia into the Land of Nod.

(Stay tuned for Part II.)

 

Enjoying Spare Oom

Tags

Decor, Design, Mimi's Cave, Spare Oom

Before my daughter Jenny told me that this room would make the best craft room, Spare Oom was going to be the parents’ bedroom.  And even though its most frequent use is for other things, it makes a great bedroom.

So while I was buying curtains at WalMart, I bought some room-darkening curtains for Spare Oom along with two sets of spring tension café rods so I could hang a pair of lace curtains I’ve been saving ever since we moved back from France in 2001!  There’s a reason I’m a pack rat!

The thing I’ve really been enjoying about Spare Oom is that with all the storage space, I have room for my scrapbooking and craft supplies along with room for a work table and a 6′ folding table that’s perfect when I need to spread out and scrapbook.

That’s just what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, and it’s wonderful to be able to go off and leave a mess that doesn’t bother anyone.  And it’s wonderful to come back and be able to pick up just where I left off!

Yes, I’m loving Spare Oom!

 

DIY Decor Project: Making “Sail” Curtains for the Dawn Treader Berths II

Tags

Aslan, Dawn Treader, Decor, Design, DIY, Grandkids, Narnia

Jim & Monique and the GKs were coming for the weekend, so I wanted to get all the curtains done in Narnia.  I wanted the kids to have a quiet, darkish place for naps and a fun curtain to hide behind for play.

The first step was to collect my supplies for the stenciling job:  the stencil I ordered from Your Memories Captured on Etsy; spray adhesive from Hobby Lobby; gold stencil spray from Hobby Lobby; paper towels; masking tape (you know what that looks like!)

Here’s a closer look at the stencil.

I used printer paper to make a large paper frame around the stencil and taped it all together.  This is to prevent over-spray.  When everything was ready, I sprayed a light coat of spray adhesive on the back of the stencil and part of the paper around it.

Next, I marked the center of my curtain by pressing a small crease in with my fingers, then laid the curtain out on my work surface.  I put several paper towels under the curtain, and using a marker, I marked the paper towel where the center of the curtain hit.

Then I put lengths of paper towels all around the printer paper shield, covering all of the exposed curtain.

After thoroughly shaking the can of gold stencil paint, I sprayed it evenly over the stencil until I was happy with the amount of paint I had applied.

Here’s where I have give you a warning to learn from my mistake!  See that thick layer of paint puddled on top of the stencil?  Well, I didn’t think anything of it and excitedly peeled my stencil off to see how it had turned out, and the liquid paint splattered onto my curtain.  😦

 I was able to get most of it off with a damp paper towel, but I learned that an extra step was necessary.

From then on, I took a doubled-over paper towel and gently blotted the excess paint from the stencil; often it was necessary to blot even more around the edges or on the stencil itself or on the paper shield.  But I had no further splatter problems!

Once the stencil was finished, I gave it a few minutes to dry to the touch while I did the other curtain panel of the pair.

Next it was time to hang the curtains.  I used 7 clip rings per panel.  One went in the center and two at the ends.  That left me with two rings to divide between half of the panel.  I measured from center to end, and it was exactly 24″.  That meant that I put a ring at 8″ and another at 16″–and the rings were spaced perfectly enough to please the most CDO of OCD personalities!  (CDO is like OCD, but it’s alphabetized!)

I may bore you with my numerous shots of the curtains hanging, but I was SO excited at how they turned out (and I just told my OCD side that the splatters on the first curtain are proof that they are hand-made!)  Here’s one in the darkened room with the reading light on inside.  You can see that this kid’s light will never bother his or her sibling in the next berth.

Here’s what they look like in the light.

And a close-up of my crown.

Here are both the curtains on the girls’ side where the berths are longer.

And here are the curtain fashion options on the boys’ side: both open or just one side open.

And a final look at the curtains with Aslan gazing on approvingly from the open curtains of his tent.

Decorating Hang-Ups

Tags

Aslan's Tent, Cair Paravel Library, Decor, Design, DIY, Grandkids, Kara, The Lodge

Sorry about the title, that’s my punning nature rearing its ugly head!  🙂

It’s been a little over a month since Narnia was ready to host guests, but the stairwell was still  bare, bare, bare.  First I was sick for 2 months, then I went to Dallas for 2 weeks.

But I came home from Dallas eager to get going on all the things that hadn’t gotten done yet. One of those was to re-hang my family portrait gallery.

As you can see, my husband and I have a lot of ancestors!  His are on the left, mine on the right.

He has a couple on the landing, too, next to the antique mirror from the old Tivoli theater that Jim & Monique gave us one year.  I’ve always loved it there, but now I love it even more because it hints at special things upstairs.

We have four kids, too, so they take up a whole wall.  Their adult portraits used to hang right where the Gothic window is now, so they had to find a new home.

I like this wall–baby pictures with the kids’ mosaic self-portraits made in homeschool and finally their wedding  (or single hood) photos. It will be fun for the grandkids to see their parents as they head into Narnia.

The placement of the wall is particularly appropriate, right next to Aslan’s Tent (the parents’ bedroom).  While looking for light-blocking curtains at WalMart the other day, I found these and thought they might go in Spare Oom.

When I opened the package, the festoons of crinkly fabric and fringe cried, “Aslan’s Tent” as clear as day!  I think they are perfect across the doorway as a hint to the extravagance inside.

I finished the walls of Aslan’s Tent some time ago, but just got around to taking pictures.  After all the methods I researched for hanging fabric,  the one I finally used was ridiculously simple:  I put knots in rough hay twine and used upholstery tacks to “nail” the twine to the wall, then draped the fabric over the twine.  The “hairiness” of the twine helps hold the fabric in place, and the twine doesn’t stretch at all so there’s little sagging.  And my method is TONS cheaper than airplane cable!

I covered the metal door to the attic in a piece of red brocade Moroccan fabric and a yard of gold lace.  Thanks to a metal cafe rod and cafe rod clips, these are no-sew curtains, the best kind!

We finally got the armoire moved up, so guests have plenty of room to move in.

On the opposite side of the room, the same colors in an opposite arrangement drape the glass doors to the balcony with more no-sew curtains.  A batik reminiscent of “A Horse and His Boy” hangs beside the chairs.  I bought this for Herb in Africa in 1985, and it’s been waiting for the perfect spot ever since it left his office there!

The Moroccan curtains are there for a purpose–to hide the ugly brown room-darkening curtains.  As you can see, they do a pretty good job.  This is a great place for parents to sleep late while Didi and Mimi feed the kids breakfast downstairs.

I took my hang-ups over into the Cair Paravel Library, too.  A large ornate mirror throws back light that comes through the stained glass door.  Next to it are two brass-rubbings I did in London many years ago, never thinking that Queen Anne Boleyn and St. George killing the dragon would bring a Narnian flavor to my decor.  I’m probably the only one that knows they aren’t a King and Queen of Narnia!

About 15 years ago, I bought this painting from a street artist in Aix-en-Provence.  We watched him do it entirely with spray paint.  (Check out Urban Wallart for more things you can do with spray paint.)  We gave it to my brother-in-law, a science fiction fan, because it was a science fiction subject.  Some years later when he didn’t want it anymore, my sister sent it back to me, and I’m so glad she did!  Kara and I think it looks just like the castle of Cair Paravel by the sea–and I think the sea looks like it’s about to spill over the frame into the room.

I found the big gold frame for $7 at Unclaimed Baggage, and it was a perfect fit.  I love serendipitous surprises like that!

The Lodge got some attention, too.  While I was in Dallas I was near a Hobby Lobby (as opposed to being an hour away here), and I found some leather bracelet kits which work perfectly to hang my special walking stick towel bar.  What does it look like to you?

I think it looks exactly like a dragon with long squinty eyes, horns for ears, a little beard and a blunt nose.  (If you can’t see it, he’s looking to the right.)

This is a very nice dragon, and he’s perfectly willing to hold the bathmat.  I won’t have any mean dragons in our Narnia!  It’s a hang-up of mine!

DIY Decor Project: Making “Sail” Curtains for the Dawn Treader Berths

Tags

Dawn Treader, Decor, DIY, Narnia

Nothing has happened in Narnia since Jan. 19 because I went to Dallas to visit my sister.  I’ve come home all fired up to get things finished, so I started this afternoon.

Well, more accurately, I continued this afternoon.  Back in early December I bought four 6′ x 9′ drop cloths at Lowe’s.  They’re 71% cotton and 29% polyester.

Based on research I did about making curtains out of drop cloths, I washed each one 5-6 times in hot water with plenty of liquid fabric softener.  Twice I ran them through the dryer on a hot setting to make sure I shrank them if they were likely to shrink.

When they were finished, they were nice and soft to the touch–much better than the stiff drop cloths I pulled out of the packages!  Then I folded them up and waited until I had time to start the curtains . . . that would be today.

 
I’ll explain the process for each pair of curtains, although of course I repeated it four times.  First I folded the drop cloth in half and laid it out on the (fairly) clean floor, making sure that the corners matched up as closely as possible.  (If you’re OCD and want them to be perfectly square, you better not use drop cloths!)

Next, I cut along the fold with a sewing scissors so I had two panels of the same size.  Assuming my 6′ x 9′ drop cloth started out 72″ x 108″, it had shrunk down to 68″ x 92″.  The 68″ side is the perfect height for my curtains, and the 92″ side covers the width of the berths perfectly (there will be a bit more fullness on the shorter berths on the boys’ side).  So when I cut each drop cloth in half, I was left with two panels of 46″ wide x 68″ high.

The next step was to seam the cut side.  First I ironed down about 1/2″ on the raw edge.

To avoid too much thickness in the corners, I clipped off part of the thick side seam on an angle.

This left an easier-to-handle corner when it came time to hem the side.

Finally, I turned the edge over one more time so the cut edge would be inside, and I ironed it to hold it in place for sewing.

So much for the easy part!  I am NOT a seamstress, and sewing machines and I don’t get along very well.

Well, once I got the right-sized bobbin in, we did much better!  But you can tell from my tense face that I’m having to concentrate on what I’m doing.

As a sewing project goes, this one wasn’t too bad–just two straight lines on each panel for a total of four straight lines of sewing for a pair of curtains.  You can’t beat that for easy!

 

The first line I sewed was along the left edge of the hem to hold it down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second line I sewed was along the folded edge.  Its only purpose is to hold down the fabric inside the hem and keep it from fraying as well as to make that side match the double-hemmed sides the drop cloth came with.

In preparation for the final step of making the curtains, I washed them again with an extra rinse cycle to remove all the fabric softener!  Note to anyone with allergies:  You might want to do that before sewing!  By the time I finished four pairs of curtains, I was sneezing my head off!

Here’s one pair of curtains hanging up to dry in the laundry room.    (By the way, my walls are not the nauseating shade of lemon yellow they appear to be in the photo!)

I don’t want to take a chance that the thread will shrink and pucker my seams, so I’m hang-drying the curtains, and I’ll toss them in the dryer to soften up before I continue.

Stay tuned for the next step–the fun part!

The Cair Paravel Library is Open for Business!

Tags

Cair Paravel Library, Decor, Design, Grandkids, Wardrobe

It’s taken awhile, but the Library is finally open for business!

This is the first glimpse of Cair Paravel as you come up the stairs and look through the Gothic window.

Just inside the window is this bookcase that I found in an out-of-the-way used furniture store that I popped into on a whim.  With the corner trim and arched top, it adds an elegant touch to Cair Paravel.  (I took this shot from across the room, inside the Wardrobe.)

Here’s the Reading Nook  with its new Billy bookshelves (Ikea was out of extension shelves so we still need one for that low shelf in the middle).  There’s a cushion on the floor for grandkids who want to read to themselves and a comfy, throne-like arm chair, well-lighted and ready for Mimi or Didi to hold a grandchild on their lap for story time.

Here’s another view showing most of the Wardrobe.  The little step stool is a handy Ikea find to help the little ones climb through the Wardrobe.  There’s a blue one inside for climbing into Narnia.

The OCD side of me loves alphabetizing books!  And making lists!  I have an almost complete list of all the kids’ books from when we lived in our Victorian house and I had my computer in the Library.  I need to update it since I got rid of a few and have added a few.  If you’re reading the titles, don’t worry, that empty space next to Little Men is for Little Women, temporarily taken down.

In case you were wondering how many books we have up here, I can tell you:  There are 807!  And that’s not counting my special favorites on the living room bookshelves right by my reading chair.  If you count those, we have 870.

Of course, the question that arises is this:  What is a “kid” book and what is an “grown-up” book?  That line gets pretty blurry.  There are a lot of books up here in Cair Paravel that dads and moms will want to read (like Lorna Doone, Ramona, Man-Eaters of Kumaon, The Three Musketeers, and the Bounty Trilogy.  And I’m sure they’ll find plenty of their old childhood favorites to re-read and to read aloud to their children when they visit.

Let’s just say that no one will ever say in this house, “I’m bored!  I can’t find anything good to read!”