Pay careful attention on how to assemble this staircase. The instruction will not help you. Not only is the drawing of the staircase assembly totally confusing, they also have the picture of where the staircase goes in the dollhouse, inverted. The staircase does not go on the right side of the dollhouse, it goes on the left where the larger rooms are. You can bash your dollhouse to make it go on the right if you want but if you built your walls and floors correctly, you will have the floor opening to the left.
Now I dry fitted this staircase to make sure that the way I’m building it is correct, and it is.
This staircase is built practically in reverse and you can get easily confused in positioning it. I suggest you find a way to keep your staircase up, in the position it will go into the dollhouse, while you're assembling. This will reduce confusion.
The way I did it is by using two clamps on the first riser and then using masking tape to hold the clamps to a table. This keeps my staircase standing up and I can see what I’m doing and that I’m doing it correctly.
Both risers and steps are the same width so there is no overhang from the steps over the risers. Make sure you glue both risers and steps to the BACK edges of your staircase sides, NOT BETWEEN them. If you glue them between your staircase sides, your staircase will be wider than the second floor staircase opening and it will not fit properly in your dollhouse.
Start from the bottom up. Keep your sides the same width all the way up so your risers and steps fit properly and your staircase turns out straight. If the sides slant too close together as you reach the top because nothing is holding them apart, use a glue stick, cut to the same width as your bottom riser and put it between the sides at the top so they are completely straight and the same width apart all the way up.
I have to build another one of these so if there aren’t enough pictures this time around to make the assembly clear, there will be with the next one.
After the staircase was dry, I painted it. I painted it completely, all the way around, in one color because I’m going to add “carpet” to it. I took some of the fabric, cut it to the same width of the staircase and glued it on, bending into each step as I worked my way down. Then I cut the bottom excess off.
I then took some beads I had and glued them to each corner of each step. Then I took golden straight pins and inserted them between each bead to give each step a rod.
I inserted the staircase in place, which was very easy to do. Most dollhouses are difficult to insert a staircase into but this one thankfully, wasn’t.
I don’t like the wooden handrail that came with this kit, so I plan on putting ribbon ones later. I just can't do it until I’m done with the room above this one.
