Finally we can begin the finishing of this room before it's closed off from us forever.
I wallpapered the staircase first. That is the finish that I chose for this staircase. If you plan on doing the same thing, make sure you fold the wallpaper over the joint between the wall and staircase, so no gap is visible. You also do not have to have a perfect diagonal cut along the staircase steps because a trim piece will be placed along that line later on, separating the wallpaper from the steps.
I then went ahead and finished wallpapering the remaining foyer walls. This can be tricky and will not be easy to do. You have to measure your wallpaper very carefully and plan ahead for the areas that will no doubt, have issues. Remember, it's very difficult to get your hand easily into this area because of the space limitations.
I wrapped the wallpapers edge around Partition #2, along the top of the staircase, so that no raw wood edge will show. You also have to make a little snip in your wallpaper where the staircase step overlaps the wall, to allow it to fit properly.
Prioritize on perfecting the wallpapers fit along the front wall, next to the staircase, because this is the wall that will be seen when you open the front doors. The right hand corner, next to the front double doorway, will not be visible from any angle except when looking in through the foyer window. So, if that edge does not line up perfectly, don't worry, it will not be visible and your dollhouse admirers will take no notice. I was thankfully, able to line up all of my wallpaper borders at the top. I think I realized too late, that a wallpaper with a top border is not the one you want to use in this foyer because it will make wallpapering it that much more difficult. Well, too late to do anything about it now. It's done and it came out, amazingly, pretty good.
After your wallpaper is put in place, you can go ahead and install flooring. I am using a very pretty pattern that my miniature loving friend, Jean, gifted me. Its scrapbooking paper in a tile pattern. It has the muted greens that I will be using throughout this dollhouse.
When using paper flooring in a room that is not square, you will need to make a template because you do not want patched flooring. I use regular copy paper to create a template of the floor and use masking tape to join pieces together until I have a perfect replica of the floor. I transfer this template to the tile paper. Now I can cut out a perfect piece of tile paper to apply to the foyer floor. The edges do not have to be perfect because baseboard molding will hide them. I used the same wallpaper paste to glue the tile paper down with.
Now I can stain the door openings and glue them in place. I had been debating for a long while whether I wanted to paint all of the mouldings in this dollhouse or stain them. Because stain hue can be so finicky in these dollhouses and I am using flooring, I was leaning towards white paint but, in the end, the dollhouse spoke and I will be using stain. Getting the hues to match throughout the dollhouse will be a little difficult but it can be done. Thankfully this dollhouse has a similar wood grain throughout and there isn't much difference between components.
Creating the molding for the staircase side, was extremely difficult. It takes a lot of dry fitting and cutting, little by little, to achieve the best fit. Then you have touch ups to do, which can be very hard for this very tight area. You will need a very fine tip brush.
Every tab and slot dollhouse has gaps on the bottom of the staircase, along the floor. The best way to hide this is with siding strips. Just cut the siding strip the size of the bottom riser, in this case for the side and front, paint and then glue in place using hot melt glue, so that the siding does not warp. Instantly the gaps are hidden and if the staircase seemed crooked, it is straightened.
I applied all of the baseboard trim to the foyer. In order to do the wall where the double front doors are, you will need a hand held mirror. Afterwards, I used a coat of acrylic gloss varnish on the tile paper for a nice shine.
Next, I have to turn the dollhouse upside down to do the ceiling. Since the dollhouse is already upside down, you might want to go ahead and run wood glue on any underside joints you may have missed before, in other rooms.
I again made a paper template of the ceiling, so I can cut out my ceiling paper to the exact fit. Do not use your expensive wallpaper paste on ceiling paper. You can use tacky glue instead. It will wrinkle a little with the moisture but will return to laying flat once dry. Ceiling paper is pretty thick and can take the extra moisture content. Some ceiling paper has a pre-pasted back, like this one, but I didn't bother using it since I am not sure how well it will work. Tacky glue is just fine, use it sparingly.
Then I applied the ceiling trim, just like I did the flooring. Notice that the ceiling trim on the staircase wall, goes all the way to the staircase riser. This will give a nice transition between the upstairs wallpaper and the foyer one.
