Glue sticks can be quite flimsy when you use it on a large area to hold down flooring, so until the baseboards are put in, your floor can lift in certain corners. You’ll have to glue them back down with the glue stick. This is why I don’t advise for you to use glue sticks to adhere your wallpaper on these size scale models. Glue sticks are great for smaller scales but not one inch scale. You can get away with this glue better on flooring because gravity is working with you but keep in mind, you will have some problems until the dollhouse is complete.
I painted my staircase in two tones to match the flooring. It just so happens that I had the exact same color paint as the dark borders of the floors, so I painted the steps and banisters that color and the rails the lighter color that’s in the middle of the floor design. The photos make it look like they have a slightly different hue but in reality, they are identical.
I painted all of the staircase parts before assembly.
I glued on the back floor parts just to square out the dollhouse better. It's really important to make the dollhouse square now that the staircase is in there drying.
I glued on the back walls to the dollhouse because its very important to continue squaring up the dollhouse. Notice that one of the walls makes the other side of the porch.
Remember to paint the backs of your back walls. You don’t have to wallpaper them because they are not visible from the back of the dollhouse, since they are facing in, but if you look through a window, you're not going to want to see unfinished wood. I painted the backs of my back walls the same neutral color as the ceiling.
You can see that this dollhouse has a very unique shape to it. It's actually open on the side rather than the back.
I finally put in the front roof. It was very easy to install. I’m not going to put in the back roof until I’m completely done with the front. I have to stain it and I need all the access to it. So it needs drying time.
After the roof dried, I stained it and let me tell you this, the wood finishes very nicely, but surely doesn’t stain the same way. Anything you stain looks like a blotchy paint job. The wood is way too even so it soaks in the stain like if it was a marker and doesn’t have enough grain to show through. For now, I’m leaving it this way but if it doesn’t look better once the dollhouse is finished with the rest of the components on, I might just have to go over it with regular paint.
I began painting the outside of the dollhouse. I had to sand down some tabs before I began. I gave it two coats, but this wood really soaks up the paint, so tomorrow I'll fill in gaps and give it a third coat.
I put the skinny sticks baseboard trim around one of the rooms and I also took some long pieces of scrap wood and made the trim around the wall to separate both wallpaper patterns. I installed the interior trim of both doors as well.
