A Breakfast At Tiffany's Happy Ending!

This past week I was able to focus on the last few tasks for the Breakfast At Tiffany's custom order. The big job, creating a door based on the brownstone's, was challenging! You see, the dollhouse kit's door openings are much slimmer, and instead of a copy of the original basement door, the client wanted both doors to match. Here's the comparison photo to refresh your memory:

Client's Park Avenue Kit Left, BAT house right.

I had to try to capture the detail and feel of the door in a much more compact design. The main BAT door has two windows on top. The client said she could live without them, but I was determined to try and make that feature a reality for her. Since she wanted to paint the doors herself, this created another challenge because I had to make the glass removable. I cut the doors from 2 mm chipboard, two outer layers and an inner core, with the Maker. This allowed me to create a recess for the glass to slide into. This sequence of photos shows how the window feature will function:

Lexan and trim piece cut to size.

Slide Lexan into recess.

Lexan seated into cavity.

Insert top trim piece.

A pin hinge has to fit here, too. Tight!

I created the door parts in Tinkercad, then 3D printed detail molding pieces to fit into the chipboard recesses. Here are the doors with the detail molding glued in, dry fit into the door frames and with the two different pediment options. I included both pediment options for the client to choose from once she's seen a live dry fit. The basement door does not have windows per the client's request. I also added the same 1/16" x 1/4" trim detail onto the door frame to match the window frames. This is to try to recreate the stepped depth look of the original facade details. I think she could even add an additional 1/16" x 1/8" piece on top of all of the frames to even further the effect.

If you remember, the client had sent me both doors and their frames from the kit so that I would have exact measurements. This was great so that once I made the new doors, I could actually mount the doors into the frames. After priming, sanding and drilling holes for the pin hinges, I mounted them. The client asked that the doors open from the left instead of the right, so I changed the hinge pin holes on the door frames, as well.

Basement door front and back

Main door front and back

Doors Opened. The chipboard has been rounded off so it does not get hung up on the frame.

The client thought, after seeing the fancier large window pediment, maybe she'd want the large window above the entry to match all seven of the other slim windows. I printed a simple rounded pediment and sent both so that she could choose her favorite once she'd seen them both in person.

Large window with fancier pediment, with simpler pediment and slim window.

I was surprised that the door portion of the project went so well and so quickly! Because of that, I was able to get final approval from the client, get paid and ship her package well before the one month time frame that I quoted to her! Here's a collage of the final order, though I included a lot of extra architectural elements (not pictured) for fun.

I can't emphasize enough what an amazing opportunity this was! I was challenged in many new ways, learned so much about the possibilities of my tools and myself, and was able to help a fellow miniaturist fulfill a dream! It just doesn't get any better than that!

Now that this fun distraction is finished, I'm looking forward to getting back to the Beachside Bungalow's kitchen. Hopefully, I'll have some progress to share with you next week!

xo xo,

Jodi