Summer In New Orleans

As I begin to put this post together, I am realizing that it may end up a little long. There were a lot of little things to do, none of them post worthy on their own, but now that they're done, they've really added up! I skipped around on the tasks, too, so I'll try to make sense of the potentially disjointed photos. Hopefully, you won't get too board or overwhelmed before the end!

This was the electrical tangle coming from under the house that needed to be camouflaged into something that looked like it belonged there. In addition, the second floor wires had to somehow join up with them. A shed and drainpipe seemed the best way to organize the mess and make a convenient electrical hub.

I used 1/8" basswood to construct a basic shed.

I had some really old and stiff hinges for the top of the shed. The outlet strip fits just inside. I mad an access hole in the floor to feed the first floor wires into.

The second floor wires are fed down from the roof and hidden in "copper downspout". You can see in the second photo below that I also added braces to the pipe and the roof crown molding is installed. The front doors are completely removable for wide access, and slide into a groove on the lid.

I began working on the finishing details for the front of the house, too. I needed to make a couple flower boxes for the dormers. I added some molding and trims to basic boxes to jazz them up a little, then decided to paint them copper to match the dormer roofs and balcony railing. I was torn for a bit about the flower colors. It was between yellow or red, but I am glad I went with the red and white combo.  It just pops against the teal.

I tend to get carried away with landscaping (remember the Storybook Cottage?) so I have tried extremely hard to keep it minimal on this build. The footprint on this house is already imposing, so when I do add the landscape board, I'll be keeping it restricted to some shrubs and lots of mulch.

For the flat roof, I went with a roll of skateboard grip tape. Here's the Amazon Link so you can get a better look at what it is, but it's too pricey on Amazon. You can go into your local skate shop and pick up a 12" x 46" roll for under $4.00. It has an adhesive backing on it, which makes it easy to install. It also peels up easily if you later need to track down wiring issues. It's a nice thickness and also makes great asphalt road if you're making a neighborhood diorama. Just add lane stripes!

The window boxes are filled with red Dahlias and white Geraniums. I made red Begonias, white Azaleas, red and white Fuchsias and red/green Echeveria, too. That was me being conservative. Now you see why I am not allowed to garden any longer in real life. At least it's harder to kill the miniature varieties! I didn't end up using the yellow Pansies, but now I've got them ready for some future endeavor!

I kept staring at the front of the house, trying to figure out what was missing. I decided that the lower porch railing needed to be copper, too, otherwise it just felt as if it disappeared.

Before in teal instead of copper.

After painted copper.

Keeping the balcony simple, each side of the door got a topiary in a fleur-de-lis copper pot and a pot of red and white flowers.

I;m still debating about a flower box for the lower floor bay window. I may just do shrubs but will decide once I get the house on the landscape board.

The landscape board won't stick out farther than the front steps.

The Fuchsia basket took two Bonnie Lavish kits of twelve each plus an additional 12 bud stems that I made using painted glue bulbs and extra leaves. I had planned on two additional hanging baskets for the porch, but ran out of Fuchsia kits!

I think it looks just interesting enough, though I could fill it completely if I didn't reign myself in! This is my compromise and what I'll call Summer In New Orleans.

The landscape board and the back opening trim are all that is left before I can finally get inside to furnish and decorate. I haven't officially finished a dollhouse since the Sweet Christmas Cottage in November of 2017, but with a little luck and perseverance I may just finish the New Orleans and the Storybook Cottage this year!!!

Feeling Grand!

Before I got the doors installed last week, I had a real mess on my hands! The New Orleans was looking like a dumping ground for all the things I had yet to figure out and install. I needed to get the ceiling/roof out for a dry fit to see how things were going to line up. Adding three inches to the interior and exterior mansard walls made getting a perfect fit a challenge!

What I ended up doing was adding 1/8" strips to the tops of all of the walls. Except the interior bedroom/bathroom and bathroom/closet walls, as they had somehow ended up being higher by that much. Once they were all evened out, I attached the crown molding to the walls, before I attached the roof. This seemed easier than reaching in. Because of the angled mansard walls, I "cheated" and used square blocks in the corners rather than having to miter and cut complicated angles. I added the ceiling paper to the ceiling before gluing and nailing it to the house permanently. Then the house went on it's head for the ceiling work. I still had gaps here and there, so I filled them in with wood glue before playing with the ceiling designs.

I had several options at my disposal, so I played around with some layouts. I ended up changing my mind several times.

For the bathroom, I wanted to keep it pretty simple by using just a ceiling rose and some corner brackets. I ended up building a frame around the brackets just to give it a little extra detail.

In the stairwell hall, I had a fancy Unique Miniatures ceiling piece, so I just added some JMG laser cut swan brackets to the corners. To get them all perfectly aligned, I used a couple pieces of 5/8" scrap wood glued into an "L" jig. This way, I could line the jig up against the molding and place the bracket into the jig to glue. Because the Unique Miniatures pieces do not lay perfectly flat, I had to use more wood glue to caulk the cracks.

My original plan for the bedroom ceiling was more dramatic. The oval Unique Miniatures piece I had turned out to be a little more egg shaped, and having more surrounding detail seemed to draw attention to the mis-shape. So I opted to create a shallow tray ceiling with 1/2" x 1/16" strip wood and keep to a simpler design. I really like the center resin frame - it is a perfect piece and the detail is lovely.

Once I had the ceilings painted with white chalk paint, it was time to add the lighting! Installing the delicate bi-pin bulbs on the Houseworks chandelier, testing the lights, cutting down the chain to the proper length and gluing the fixtures to the ceiling was nerve wracking!

But with a lot of patience and praying, all went well!

I'm thanking my lucky stars that this part went so smoothly, but I'm not in the clear just yet. I've got two led spot lights to add to each room which means back on her head she goes while I try to carefully drill the holes. Makes me sweat just thinking about it! But while I am sweating, I am also so grateful that this long neglected project has all it's structural pieces in place! I can see the end now, and because the challenges have been so big, the satisfaction is equally as grand!

xo xo,

Jodi