Custom Dollhouses: Posts to Come

How I got started building dollhouses

Thursday, June 18, 2009

When folks see some of the houses I've built, many will ask how I got started building them. The very short answer is "it is my wife's fault". My wife has a weekly woman’s group that started out as a 'knitting' group but 'knitting' does not even begin to describe the types of craft and community service projects they have undertaken. It has been said that they could run a small country (and just for the record, I would agree). So when my wife found out that there was a dollhouse kit at one of her friend's house that had been started, (barely started as I later found out) packed up in a few boxes, and not touched for several years due to the lack of someone to build it, my wife told her friend bring it over and we'll have the Tuesday night girls do it. She went on to say I'll have my husband 'electrify' it. Later she told me about it and asked "you CAN put electricity in it right?" To which I replied "Sure, I am an Electrical Engineer... I can put electricity into most anything." It wasn't until the boxes of parts came to my house that I realized that yours truly was about to become the general contractor (and all the sub-contactors as well). Every week, when the women came over for their weekly 'knitting', they couldn't wait to checkout the progress I had made since they saw it last. Given all this encouragement, I continued to plow ahead. Somewhere about half way through construction I realized that you can build a dollhouse kit and have it look like crap or have it look pretty darn good. It is the attention to detail and precision work that determine which way things will turn out. By the time I was making the final finishing touches and getting ready to let this house go to the owner's granddaughter that it had always been intended for, I knew some day I would built another one. I just didn't think it would be so soon! About a month later I was coming back from a business trip in Europe and my wife picked me up at the airport. There was a brand new dollhouse kit in the back of the car. Part inventory started that night and part preparation started the very next day. As I write this, I've completed four dollhouses, have a fifth house in the build process and most of the materials for a sixth house.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Posts to Come - Tips

Suggestions for Tip Topics are Welcome!

It has been said that the world wasn't created in a day... and neither will this blog!

This posting is meant to provide readers with some insight on future posts that I'm thinking about making on this blog.

Rough Draft /Outline for Subjects I’ll likely write about

Going to Build a Dollhouse? What’s your Plan?

The importance of having a good plan and how it relates to both the amount of time your project will take and the overall quality you will achieve when you are done.
The makings of a ‘good’ plan
Understanding trade-offs related to differing orders of doing things
Pros of the divide and conquer approach
Doing things in bulk / Doing things in stages

Glues and their applications

Yellow wood glue
White Tacky glue
Hot glue gun
Wallpaper paste

Part Prep
Flooring – Things to Consider

Materials
Installation
Wood Floor Finishing

Roofing

Roof line layout and shingle under color
Need to sand shingles?
Stain, paint, other finishes
Adhesive of choice
Cutting shingles to fit

Electric

Tape vs. Round Wire
What’s the plan, and when in the build process should you have it?
Wiring in stages throughout construction vs. wiring after main construction is complete
Electrical outlets – Types and Locations
Electrical Connections
Multiple power feeds for future capacity and/or redundancy
Ceiling Fixtures
Power Sources