First Things First

Sometimes I get working happily away and then suddenly realize, with shocking clarity, that I'm about to make a big problem for myself. I am so grateful for that little voice that screams inside my head! Here I was, totally engrossed, making furnishings and fillings for Wayne's apartment. Thanks to that little voice, I began pondering when I should glue his partition wall and where I would run the wiring for his lights. Then it hit me: you're going to have to attach the roof. That realization sent me into an existential crisis about what I had left to do, how those tasks would affect future tasks and exactly what order of operations was going to be the most beneficial/least problematic!

That's when I totally changed gears from Wayne's place to the great room. As a reminder, it became "great" when I cut big swaths out of the second and attic floors leaving behind only the balconies. A three story room is pretty great, right? God I LOVE dollhouses!!!

You see, I always wanted something really great and worthy of a great room. And that meant a fantastic fireplace. Last February (Valentines Day to be exact), while gathering ideas about what the treehouse wanted to look like, I came across this photo. OMG instant crush!!! Cupid's arrow hit me hard. I knew I had to try and achieve the vibe of this amazing fireplace, but how? I've spent the last year working out possibilities.

First, because a lot of the wiring had to run behind the fireplace down the center of the treehouse, I'd need a hollow wall. But not a thick wall because the floorspace in the great room, thanks to the balcony, was already pretty limited. So a wall thin enough to be passable to the eye and also allow for the wiring. Thank goodness I did not attach Wayne's wall because that provided my pattern for the gabled roof. And thank goodness I did not attach the roof because I might have had a dickens of a time getting this hulking fireplace installed afterwards. I created a gabled roof pattern on cardboard from Wayne's partition wall and with this, and a few more measurements, I created the great room fireplace wall.

As you can see I used art board for the wall and lined three sides with 1/4" x 1/4" basswood to create the hollow, also providing a nice gluing surface.

And then I had to come up with a substrate for the fireplace. The gnarled tree bark will get created from paperclay or paper mache but I needed something with the basic tree trunk shape to attach everything to and to lend stability. Hello Design Space. Hello chipboard.

I started off with a bottle shape then sliced and welded until I achieved roughly the shape and size I wanted. Because my Cricut Maker only cuts chipboard that is 10.5 x 10.5 inches, I had to make the substrate in two sections to achieve the 22 inch height. The front would have a cutout for the firebox and a niche high up the chimney. The back would be solid. I was able to replicate the shape of the openings in the balcony and staircase windows to tie the firebox opening/niche in with the fairytale theme of the treehouse.

I attached the bottom and top sections of the front and back fireplace pieces, gluing art board across the inside seams to lend strength. For the sides of the fireplace I used more art board scrap. It can easily be scored to make the gentle bends I needed but also makes for a sturdy substrate. 

Once I had the sides securely glued it was time to make the firebox and the framing for the niche.

And that is where I'll stop for today, my friends. Today is mine and Russ' 37th wedding anniversary and he's playing hooky from work. 😉 

A shotgun, Vegas wedding, no money for rings and no clue what was ahead. But here we are, 37 years later, still in love, still really liking each other and proving love truly does conquer all. 💘💗💘💗💘

February 22, 1987

One last thing before I go... I made a bunch of newspapers for Wayne's apartment and thought I'd share the printies. They are great for filler or to use as props under mini art projects, on attic walls or shop windows, crumpled in trash bins or stacked in messy rooms. 

xo xo,

Jodi

Setbacks and Revamps

Setbacks, difficulties, impediments, obstacles or failures. It doesn't matter which term you attach to any outcome that is other than the one you wanted. What's important is that you never give up. I believe if you learn anything it's still progress. I got many chances to practice that principle working on Wayne's furniture this week. At times I had to battle frustration and disappointment, but by reframing how I thought about each setback, I was able to revamp things and keep enjoying my mini time.

Things started off well with Wayne's kitchen table and chairs. I designed the pieces in Design Space and cut them from 2 mm chipboard. The table is a simple round table with the top in two pieces, one slightly smaller than the other, to create a step down effect. The base started out as a half circle and a bowling pin with some aspects sliced away. Can you see it? This gave it a unique shape. Opposing notches are cut into each piece so that they can slide together. The set went together great the first time and, most importantly, Wayne liked them. They'll need a bit of aging to give them character, but I'll wait and do that with the rest of the chipboard furnishings at the same time.

A perfect fit for Wayne!

For size perspective, Wayne is 2" tall and about an inch wide.

The next pieces I worked on, Wayne's leather club chairs, were a lot more complicated. I made it as easy on myself as possible by using the chair pattern I'd previously created for the Beachside Bungalow's bedroom. All I had to do was resize the pattern down to Wayne size. To give them club chair characteristics, I revamped the shape of the back of the chair. 

You can see below a good demonstration of the difference in scale from 1/12th to Wayne's scale, which I believe is close to 1/36th (G scale in model railroading).

Beachside Bungalow's bedroom

Wayne's chair back looks like a slice of toast, lol!
The brown pieces are cut from chipboard, the white from cardstock.

I finished the chair using the upholstery process from One Inch Minis and used tiny patterned/thin upholstery fabric. 

Some might call this good enough with fabric on, but Wayne requested leather.

Then came the challenging part: faux leather. While I've seen several YouTube Tutorials on how to achieve a faux leather look on upholstery and fabric, I didn't adhere strictly to any one method. Rather, I took aspects I thought made sense from some of them. All included applying a good coat of Mod Podge first to essentially seal and smooth the surface. I let that cure overnight before giving the chairs a light base coat of nutmeg brown. I wanted some of the yellow tones to show through.

Once dried I sponged on a darker brown mixed with satin glazing medium. It looked like we were getting somewhere!

But when I took photos, I noticed that when magnified by the camera close up, the fabric looked as though it had "pilled" up. Yikes!

Apparently, they needed a thicker coat of Mod Podge. That helped, but they still looked pretty flat and one dimensional. I was beginning to worry that all my time invested into these would result in one big failure. Ugh.

Finally, after adding highlighting and aging with a dark wash and dry brushing, I can live with them. The final sheen was achieved with a 50/50 mix of satin varnish and matte varnish. One was too shiny and one was too flat. Mixed in equal parts seems to have been the sweet spot. The yellow label Mod Podge was great as a pre-sealer, but made them look a little more like vinyl and less like leather. Which could work to your advantage on some pieces... say, pool inflatables? Thankfully, after I kept at them, Wayne is thrilled! He said he can't wait until he has a lamp that he can read by. I can't wait to catch him snoozing in one some afternoon!

The next revamp began when I had all of Wayne's furniture sitting together on my work table. The bed I had made for him last fall (when I made Roz and Rosario's beds) looked huge! And it kind of was. Not in its width or length, but definitely in height. And since the bed is going to be in a room with gabled roofs, height surely matters.

The big bed is a good length and width, but Wayne needs a stool to climb in!

Rather than lamenting about all the time it took to create the big bed (and to sew all the bedding), I decided to look at this as an opportunity to make another fun bed style perfectly sized for Wayne. I designed it from scratch in Design Space with layered head and foot boards and an inlay of carved tree branches. It took an entire day to design, cut, assemble, add bark to the branches, let dry and begin painting. I got nearly to the final phase of finishing before I found faults with my design. The footboard was a bit too tall, the legs were a bit too tall and any comfy looking mattress was going to block too much of the headboard inlay. It was hard to admit, but it just didn't work. Finally, I faced facts and realized that I liked the style of his big bed much, much better. 

This design still needs work.

Here are the big bed and the first revamp in the gabled bedroom...

Big bed

First prototype of the revamped bed. It measures 2" tall, 2" wide, and 3" deep.

Since I had resized the chair successfully I thought I could try resizing the big bed pattern into a more petit version. This meant reducing the height of the legs off the floor and the height of the head and foot boards. The width and length would remain the same and, hopefully, it would keep its character. I essentially just sliced off the legs, sliced out a section from all the head and foot board pieces and then welded them back together again. Et voila!

Wayne's big bed pieces in brown and the petit version in purple.

The revised bed seems promising! It looks a lot like the big bed and will be a much better fit for both Wayne and the gabled bedroom. With a little perseverance, by next week, it'll be just right. 

I'll leave you this week with a peek at the new entry step down and built in bookshelves that are a work in progress. Wayne is a bit of a pack rat so this space will fill up fast! I'm not set on the layout just yet, but I'm confident something will make sense, soon!

I hope you're revamping your "setbacks" and turning them into improvements, too!

xo xo,

Jodi

Wayne's World

My regular readers will be familiar with our furry and friendly, handy and talented, resident raccoon craftsman, Wayne. His knowledge and willingness to tackle any task has been essential in making both the trunkhouse and the treehouse become a home. That is why I am delighted to report that this week it was finally time to begin working on Wayne's attic apartment!

Wayne

Wayne's Attic Apartment

To regular 1/12th folks, the attic space might feel a little petit. But to Wayne, at just 2-1/8" tall (to the tippy tufts of his ears), it's absolutely palatial! Sounds great, right?!? But how do I utilize and maximize every inch of this place and give Wayne a happy home? It's a challenge, and to further complicate matters, its my first real "less than 1/12th scale" project that isn't an all-in-one kit.

To help me visualize and get a feel for the actual amount of space Wayne has, I found measurements online for standard half scale furnishings. Then, I created shapes in those measurements that I could print out and lay out in his apartment.

Good plan, right? Except when I asked Wayne to come take a look. We both immediately saw a problem. The standard half scale stove measurements would require that Wayne stand on a step stool just to use it! That just wouldn't do! 

Maybe half scale wasn't quite right. And Wayne is certainly too big for 1/48th scale. He is basically 2/3 of half scale. That'll make your brain hurt! Whatever the actual scale ends up being, the facts are simple: Wayne is going to need an entire apartment of customized furnishings and accessories sized just for him. How fun! 😄

A half scale stove is just too tall.

Wayne and I took some measurements then went back to the drawing program. Our second set of models looked much, much better!

We felt confident in taking our measurements over to Design Space to create our first pieces! We started with the cooking stove, as it will also serve to heat the apartment. And alongside that we created Wayne's dry sink and hutch cupboard.

Here Wayne is installing the stovepipe and pot burners.

And here he's painting the hutch and dry sink unit before assembly.

Yippee! The first area of Wayne's apartment has it's furnishings and they're a great fit!

But there is still so much more Wayne needs to live a comfortable life! Kitchen table and chairs, comfy arm chairs and occasional tables, bookshelves, nightstand, rugs, mementos and good lighting... The list is long but now that we know how to scale things, everything in Wayne's World will fit him perfectly!

Back soon with more progress!

xo xo,

Jodi

Miracles

Hi Guys! February already? Seems like 2024 is going to go by just as fast as 2023 did! Yikes!

In spite of the calendar, I have been able to make a little progress on the treehouse over the last couple weeks. And I got a task completed that had me a little anxious: The Roof!

When I build out of sequence (Who? Me?), adding things on and rearranging components, I never know what kinds of issues I might be creating for myself later. Miraculously, this time, it wasn't too bad. I started by finding all the roof pieces, removing them from the kit's sheets and sanding. Oh the sanding! The fancy gable deco pieces took a lot of sanding and a good bit of assembly. Listening to Steven King's Fairytale audiobook through the process made it very enjoyable!

Gable Deco Components

Then paint. Does everyone struggle with what paint color to put where like I do? The final weathered look I have in my mind is not so bold, but it has to start out that way. Once the gable deco was painted and assembled, the rest of the roof pieces could be assembled. 

I had a 1/4" gap on the left side of the right front gable and couldn't account for why. I had Russ, the handy construction consultant, look at it with me, too. Neither of us could figure out why, so maybe it was just a factory kit piece cutting issue? We'll probably never know. But, luckily, a little filler strip of art board took care of the issue.

I wanted to bring a little natural light into the dark recesses of the gables. So, each of them got a window designed and cut with the Cricut Maker. Wayne's apartment gable will have an arched dormer window and the girls' bathtub gable a round skylight,

Wayne's Dormer Window

Pointed at the stars for nighttime viewing from bed.

Bathtub alcove skylight.

Other than the gap, the roof fit pretty good. I marked where the walls and floors met the roof and then...

First look with the roof on... finally!

Wayne's Apartment

Bathtub Alcove

Left it removable for now so that it would be a lot easier to do the wall treatments.

Removable Lid

Easy To Work On

After priming the walls and painting the gable trim color, I added the timbers using 1/16" x 1/4" basswood strips. The dividing wall between Wayne's apartment and the great room got thicker basswood, 1/8", to give the appearance of thickness since it'll be viewed from the side profile. I made it from art board.

Wayne's Timbers

I painted the timbers to match the majority of the rest of the house (except the girls' room which has purple timbers).

And then I spent some lovely hours applying the Paperclay. It took just under 8 ounces for the attic walls. I'm pretty messy with the Paperclay, so it requires I sand off some timbers then touch up the paint. Followed by age washes.

Almost Ready For Move-In!

Once I permanently affix the roof piece on to the treehouse, I'll have to install baseboard trim where the front roof and floors meet. And Wayne's apartment needs steps and trims, too. But before I install the roof, I have lighting to add.

And there are so many half scale furnishings and fixtures to make for Wayne's apartment. It's going to be interesting to work in that scale!

With a little luck and maybe a few miracles I'll be back next week with more progress. Until then, I hope you're finding time for creative joy, as well!

xo xo,

Jodi

Wonderful news about mom! She had her post surgery consultation this morning. The doctor says the mass was not cancerous!!! I can't even express how amazing that news is! We are all just so relieved and grateful! She still has some underlying health issues to resolve, but with this news, she is ready to face the next problem head on! I can't thank you all enough for your thoughts, prayers and condolences! I told mom, just maybe, it's a miracle!!!