Not Yet Done, But Dusted!

I honestly can't remember how long it has been since I brought the Storybook Cottage dollhouse down from the shelf for dusting and repairs. My memory being what it is, if I didn't blog about it, I'll never really know for sure! It is obvious from the state of things that it has been a good, long while. My! How time flies...

Entombed in dust, the palette looks much more pastel.

The first task in getting this poor dollhouse finished was to assess the state of things. The gutters and a few of the "metal" roof's standing seams had completely given up and were lying across the garden path! I'm so glad Rose has been staying with Kairi and Roxanne! I'm sure she would have had a heart attack at the sound of this thing coming down!

The dust depth test was a shameful moment! At least I can partially blame the real life renovations for creating an excess amount of dust throughout the entire house. Seems like I am constantly dusting and vacuuming something! I just hadn't made it around to the dollhouses in a while.

I was really afraid of what I'd find when I turned the dollhouse around to look inside. Luckily, it wasn't too bad, considering...

But how do things become so wrecked when the house has been sitting on a shelf and no one has been home??? Do I have partying elf squatters that I don't know about? I better go check on the treehouse! Wayne has been known to keep questionable company every now and then. 

At first glance, the kitchen appeared to be in chaos! On closer inspection, thankfully, it was in pretty good shape! I was actually surprised that I didn't find empty red Solo cups, ping pong balls or Cheetos strewn on the floor! 

Wouldn't it be great, though, to discover evidence of the good kind of elves? You know, the kind that sneak in at night and help shoemakers and such. Ones that like to dust and straighten things up! 😊

The bathroom looked dilapidated, at first, with the medicine cabinet and sconce lying on the floor. But otherwise, things remained where I'd left them.

The only thing in the bedroom was a lot of dust and my abandoned To-Do list. Hey - I bet that's going to come in handy!

The assessment was pretty darn good, but before any repairs could get started, I wanted to empty the inside and outside of every loose item. This way, as I spun and jiggled to fix things, I wouldn't make anything worse! After a bit of reminiscing and admiring, I tucked it all away in a tote for safe keeping. It will all have to be cleaned and reaffixed with fresh museum wax before going back inside.

The only things I left inside were the things that were permanently affixed or that were super hard to put back into place. As long as the museum wax is still holding tight, I can dust/clean them in situ.

How exactly does a giant person clean a tiny cottage? I don't know how everyone does it, but I have a few tricks I've learned over the years. First, I like to vacuum as much dust away from the inside and outside as I can before I begin the hand cleaning. My philosophy is to let the HEPA filter in the vacuum encapsulate/capture what it can to save my lungs a little!

Wand with small attachment. There is also an extension I can add for hard to reach recesses.

My Shark vacuum has specialty attachment accessories available that you can buy. Your vacuum may have them, too. This one is small enough that it fits into a lot of tight places inside and out of a dollhouse. Be careful, though! It is a very powerful suction!

Rest assured that if anything should happen to come loose and be accidentally sucked up, the canister contents can be easily rummaged through before disposal.

For size comparison. Very small but powerful attachment.

Just look at how much dust gets sucked up in the first pass! It's so much better than spreading the dust particles around while you're trying to capture them!

The vacuum takes care of about 80% of the dust battle, but what about the tight spaces and tiny crevices?

For those, I like to use a variety of soft makeup brushes. I gently sweep out/off the corners and items while holding the vacuum attachment close by to capture the dust. They are great for clearing out tiny, hard to reach crevices in corners and on delicate mini décor.

To remove residual museum wax, I love my metal Cricket spatula/scraper tool. It is thin and removes almost all of the wax by gently scraping it from the surface. It can be collected and reused if it is still clean. A glasses cleaning cloth is great for polishing the last bit of waxy residue away and can be tossed in the washer with kitchen towels.

When it comes to dollhouse flowers and garden landscapes, I vacuum off as much as safely possible. Then, I like to give everything a good blast of air! This really gets to the fine particles of dust in hard to reach places. Because canned air is so expensive and is really bad for our ozone, I have invested in an Electric Air Duster. The benefits are many, including being rechargeable. It has turned out to be the perfect tool for cleaning real life electronics, computer keyboards, speakers, video game consoles, power tools, window tracks and any place you need a forceful blast of air to loosen dirt and grime (like car dashboards). I find new uses for it all of the time!

CAUTION! It is remarkably powerful, so start slow and work your way up to full blast!

There is also a cheaper version that still gets great reviews!

Comes in a nice sturdy box for storage.

Many attachments to choose from.

Now that the dust was out of the way, I came up with a plan to repair things. The only issues with the exterior of the Storybook were the fallen gutters, the roof's standing seams coming unbonded and the mail box's lifting door had fallen off because the glue on the hinges had failed. It seems that the adhesive I used did not create a very good bond with the Krylon Metallic Copper Paint pen. It is oil paint, though, so I should have known the bond would not be strong with water based adhesive. I'll take note of that and be sure to leave bare wood to wood in the future so it bonds better.

It was tricky to attach the gutters back onto the house because there are teacup rain chains attached to them on both ends. The ends of those rain chains are attached to rain barrels. It was like working with hand shackles on, I imagine!  I sanded the paint off the areas where I was going to put the glue (a combination of Tacky Glue and Gorilla Super Glue Gel) and then supported them overnight with several pieces of masking tape. It seems to have bonded well now.

The front metal roof section above the door and bay window had four of the ribs come loose. I could only find two of them in the garden so I had to cut, paint and adhere a couple more. I applied a moss wash in several areas to blend them in.

I found that many of the flower petals and leaves, in spite of having been sprayed with sealer, had faded over time. I had dyed them with alcohol ink when I made them back in 2018/2019 and had no experience with how well that would hold up to time. Some petals and leaves were still as fresh looking as the first day and some were in varying degrees of fading. For the most obvious fading, I reapplied alcohol ink using a small paint brush. I resealed them with Mod Podge for paper in hopes of getting a thicker coating of protection. We'll see how that holds up, compared to the spray sealer, over time.

I also repaired the tiny cottage mailbox by re-gluing the opening flap and the wee flag.

I was very happy that, under all the dust, things had held up amazingly well since I stopped working on the Storybook in 2019! Now, as I turn my attention to working on completing the interior projects, I am hopeful that I'll find things are still safe and in great condition, too!

xo xo,

Jodi