The Monarchs have arrived!  The Monarchs are enjoying the fresh spring growth on the sod roof. The pink flowers are blooming. (Click the photo to see an enlarged version.) A few of them landed on the backside of the cottage. The question of what to use for the baseboards has been answered. Half-inch strips from the cereal box were covered with Contact paper.  One of the boards is turned over to show the back, which will take glue very nicely. The Contact paper is stuck to the printed side. Now all of the exposed wood in the cottage will match. The plain wooden boards fi ..read more

  The roof is evolving! The gable roof turned out to be the same felt/sod of the main roof. Sometimes I overthink the challenges. Using a different type of roofing would, I think, have messed up the overall look.  I carefully painted the edges of the roof to match the green of the sod. In a few places the paint got onto the felt. It was the same color, just a bit darker. That set me to thinking. A few minutes later, the roof had some shading. What do I see on the chimney? Can it be the first of the Monarchs? Thinking: I am not sure about the color of the benches. I am pondering ..read more

  The furniture is assembled. The bench, hutch, and settee.  The skirting boards are strips of flowers being auditioned. If they get the part, they will be printed on full-sheet, sticky-backed label paper and stuck to the walls on the ground floor. The upper floor walls slope, so they will need a different approach. The second settee and the bed on the upper floor. The table on the ground floor. The glue needs to dry overnight before the furniture gets its base coat of gesso. The furniture will be painted ivory and have some painted decoration ..read more

  Lots of fiddly bits are taking some time, but inch by inch we are heading toward the finish line. Here are the furniture pieces. One of the two settees and the bench are assembled. A bed, table, corner hutch, and a second settee are waiting in the assembly line. The furniture could be stained but I think cottage furniture should be painted. When all of it is assembled, it will get a coat of gesso and then some color.  When the furniture pieces were removed from the plywood sheets, it became apparent that the kit does not contain interior window trim. It also became apparent that ..read more

 More work on the exterior. All of the plaster on the front and both sides of the cottage have been painted.  The front timbers will have to be glued into place before the benches can be built on the front porch. The little benches are very tight-lipped; they have not told me what color they want to be. The remaining parts of the benches have been undercoated with gesso. They are resting on a few pieces of spaghetti so the air can circulate beneath them and both sides can dry.  The tabs on the two seats and the slots are not painted; they will be glued. Time to peruse the pa ..read more

 The chimney is made of stones torn from paper egg cartons.   The first step was to paint the chimney with a medium gray craft paint, just a bit darker than the gray of the egg carton. This will serve as grout between the stones. The "stones" glued on in a random pattern to mimic fieldstones. The "grout" looks more like background than a substance holding the stone in place. A little more magic is needed. To reach this stage, some of the "grout" gray was brushed over the stones. Not a solid layer, but enough to cover any printing and add some highlights to the stones ..read more

 Working on the chimney wall with its timbering and plaster walls and stone chimney.  (FYI--click on the photo to see a larger picture.) The chimney wall has been painted with gesso, an acrylic primer that is used to prepare a substrate for painting in oils or acrylics. It dries to a matte finish and helps to seal the wood so the naturally occurring oils will not leach out to stain the surface treatment. The timber templates have been traced and removed. The areas between the timbers will be painted to resemble the normal discoloration of aging. Watercolors work well o ..read more

 The main body of the cottage has been glued, and a bay window and chimney have been added to either end.  The chimney is just a flat piece of wood added to one end. The two little slots near the top are where parts of the main roof will attach. The bay window is on the other end piece. The base of the bay is glued. The roof is fitted but not glued. Another step has to happen before it is attached. The kit comes with white cardboard "timbers". I had in mind to paint them a dark brown and fill the background with brick and/or stucco made from Spackle. I got to thinking tha ..read more

 I recently moved from near Atlanta to a retirement community in the western suburbs of Chicago called Monarch Landing. Several of the dollhouses recorded in this blog were sold in an auction, but a few came with me. The quilt shop and pottery shop have pride of place in the new apartment. The Beacon Hill and Pierce (Bohemian Inn), both under construction, are in a storage cage down the hall. Tools and craft supplies are in boxes and tubs in a large closet as well as a couple smaller Greenleaf kits, the Sugarplum Cottage and the Buttercup.  There is a dedicated worktable in the apart ..read more

 Th past few days have seen  progress in the dining room and front hall. Wallpaper, trim, and lights! The dining room sconce was first. The tape wire that serves it is on the hall side of the wall, so it had to be installed before the hall could be papered. The chandelier will be wired to a bit of tape on the floor of the room above. It will be added when that flooring goes in, to protect the joint. The front hall was a bit tedious, as the stairs had to be moved in and out sevrl times to adjust tolerances. the near door in the parlor wall had to be blocked and the far door had to b ..read more