The Half Scale Chantilly Dollhouse Day 6

I had to do a lot of touch ups to the staircase and you really want to get this done before you begin the rest of the assembly, especially of the doors and windows.

Installing the staircase railings was actually more difficult that installing the entire staircase. Remember these parts have to be installed finished and when you apply paint and use glue on such small parts, then tend to swell, making the installation of tabs and slots harder. When they cut out these parts with the die cut machine, they do not leave any leeway for finishing so that extra coat of paint makes a big difference when trying to fit things in place. Be gentle, patient and always remember to tap stubborn parts into place with a mallet.

You can not install the front, second floor railing until after you wallpaper the upper floor of the dollhouse. I have mines dry fitted only to straighten out the side railing while it dries.

I wallpapered the room next to the staircase room. Always position the cut edge of your wallpaper downwards towards the floor so you can hide it with baseboards. Your cuts do not have to be perfect as everything will be hidden with trim. This includes your window cuts.

The bay is going to be tricky to finish so I am leaving that for later. Do not install it before you wallpaper or it will just be in the way and it is so small that you can not wrap wallpaper around it while installed. If your Chantilly is one inch scale, you can do it that way but not with this smaller model. The bay will have to be finished away from the dollhouse.

After the first floor is completely wallpapered, you can go ahead and install the second floor, back edge piece. The ends are suppose to go into tiny slots that are located on the back of each side wall but do not even attempt to try and get this part to fit in them. Not only have these slots become very small with primer, glue and wallpaper but this back edge is not holding any structure together. It is more an aesthetic element to the dollhouse that anything else. Save yourself the aggravation and cut a little off one end so that it can fit into the dollhouse without having to go into these slots. Use binder clamps to hold it tightly in place against the back walls. The support slot in the center interior wall that holds up the middle of this back edge is enough to hold it in place.

Make sure that you have touched up the entire staircase assembly.