Since the bathroom and kitchen sides are fully finished, I started working on the exterior wall of this side of the dollhouse. I had leftover siding from The Lily Dollhouse, so I decided to use it here. When siding a dollhouse that doesn’t come with it, there are some important considerations.
First, you need to decide how much siding to use. I chose to side the bottom of the kitchen bay as well. You also need to ensure you have enough wood for trim, including bottom, top, and side pieces. Trimming can be challenging in this situation. Since the dollhouse wasn’t designed for siding, the kitchen bay is very close to the wall's edge, making it difficult to apply trim in that area. I recommend leaving it as is and only adding trim above the bay roof.
Because I sided the kitchen bay, I added a trim piece along the bottom of the window sills. I used dowels between the bay walls to fill gaps at the joints, but spackle would work too. Be careful not to overdo it with trim. It’s easy to get carried away and end up with too much, which can overwhelm the dollhouse's appearance. Keep it simple and use trim only when necessary.
I applied brick paper to the foundation area and, once it dried, installed the bottom bay brackets. I used foundation trim only on the right and left sides of these brackets, leaving the middle without trim. Remember to install the brackets before adding any trim; otherwise, they won’t fit.
I painted the bay roof brown temporarily; it will be shingled later. I installed all of the exterior window pieces first before moving on to the interior. For the bathroom window, I applied exterior trim over the siding. Once it dried, I used spackle along the inside edges to hide any gaps.
After finishing the exterior, I added window "glass" to the interior openings. It’s crucial to keep these windows straight and ensure that the silk screening lines up across all openings.
Finally, I installed interior trim on the windows. Note that I didn’t use top trim for the kitchen bay windows because there wasn’t enough space due to the bay ceiling trim. That’s fine; I’ll leave those windows without top trim since I plan to use a valance that will cover this area.
