The Willowcrest Dollhouse Day 7

I wanted to install some components today. I painted the exterior of the dollhouse. For the body of the dollhouse you need two coats of paint. After the two coats, I began sanding and assembling the windows. I started with the small windows first since they have the most parts. You have to paint each part that makes the window separately and you have to do both fronts and backs. When you look inside of the your dollhouse and out the windows, you will be able to see if the windows aren’t painted in the back because there will be visible raw wood edges. Make sure you paint ALL sides of each piece, even if they are layered over each other. Small areas count in a small scale.

I clamped them with binder clips after they were done. I waited a little while and then clamped them to their openings. Clamping takes a lot of force, but it guarantees that the parts will sit as flat as possible to the walls.

While the windows dried, I continued with the roof. I had to make the chimney assembly. The instructions tell you to build this assembly away from the dollhouse, but I decided that it would be easier for me to build it on the dollhouse. So I first glued on the chimney front in place and worked my way from there. It just makes it sit better in the slots and you don’t have to fumble with the side roof panel.

I have left this assembly unfinished for now because I want to give it a stucco look in green. I want to stucco the entire chimney and all of the interior roof. The wallpaper I’m using for this room has green tones to it, so the chimney stuccoed green will match. It will also hide all of the gaps. I had thought about wallpapering the chimney but I changed my mind. I can't stucco with the assembly out of place, so I have to put the entire thing in unfinished and then stucco later. If you want to paint or wallpaper these parts, you will have to do it BEFORE you assemble them together so it's easier.

While that dried, I began assembling the barrel roof. Notice that I took some pictures so you can see where the support goes. It goes flat against the interior wall in the slots. The pieces for the barrel roof fit perfectly. This shows that the dollhouse is square and completely straight since the beginning of the build. The moment of truth for a straight dollhouse is when you get to the roof and this dollhouse has a pretty complicated roof. The barrel roof has ridges so it can bend. Put masking tape on the back. Then slowly and gently bend each ridge panel until it snaps in a bent position but don’t break them off! Do it just so it bends into an arch while still attached together. Glue them in place. They fit perfectly as well, with no gaps on any sides. I used masking tape to keep them down.

I moved on to more windows. I glued on the bay sills and windows. I glued in all of the roof trims for the porch and bays. I again returned to the main roof. I glued all of the mansard roof supports. I glued on the top roof cornice trim.