Solving The Stair Puzzle

When I thought back to all of the mini projects I've ever done, even the ones prior to my nine year hiatus, I was surprised to realize that I had never done stairs! No wonder this has been such a challenge, especially when you consider the complicated configuration necessary for the barn!

There are a lot of steps to making stairs, so if you decide to take them on, patience is a requirement.

First, if you need to make alterations, you have to get that all figured out (see previous post) prior to starting. Then you have to sand every stair, every tread, every spindle, every post and every handrail. Then you have to stain the parts getting stain and paint the parts getting painted. Remember, you are working with very thin wood, so you have to do both sides at once to avoid warping.

Thanks to many mini blogs out there, I knew to stick the spindles into styrofoam upside down to spray paint them. Then when I installed them, I just had to touch up the ends going into the railing.

If I was doing a fancy house (yes, please! Someday), I would have sanded everything again after the first coat, painted/stained again, sanded again with 1500 grit, then applied three coats of varnish, also sanding between those coats. But this is a barn house. See the attraction now? A light sanding and a coat of satin varnish was all I needed to do!

Next came gluing the treads to the stair assembly. I toiled. If I used contact cement, I'd have to align them perfectly because you only get one shot. Once it touches the surface of anything, it's stuck. I was not too confident in my placement precision, so I went with the old stand by. I used very little and thinly spread out tacky glue and hoped they would not warp. That worked out really well. 

If anyone out there has a great thin wood non warping glue solution, I'll trade you a plate rack for the info!

Each of the treads have a pre-drilled hole for the spindle to sit in. Once you get a couple coats of spray paint on them, you have to really wedge them in. I was concerned I'd break them, but these little guys are tough! After I'd got all the treads and spindles attached to the lower stairs, it was time to add wood flooring and wallpaper to the landing. Once that was dry (I cleaned my dining/living rooms while I waited for everything to dry) I could attach the lower stairs to the landing. I kept the wide stair landing tread as the top piece because I liked the way it looked, and also because it gave me more surface area to glue to the landing. I used a heavy lead weight on top of the tread while this dried.

Once the landing/stair assembly was ready, I needed to dry fit it into place so I could measure the upper stair case. In the meantime I had installed, stained and varnished the wood floor in the living room. The fit was perfect; snug bet not too tight!

Where the wallpaper ends on the walls, I'll be adding (hopefully today) wood strip wainscoting. I have a bunch of those craft tongue depressors, so I'll cut off the curved ends and then cut them in half. Then stain and varnish, of course, and hope they don't warp... 

You probably noticed that I had cut the hole where the front door needed to be raised, and added another square window opening. I tried the plunge router attachment on the dremel with an all purpose bit, but that was a disaster. I could not stay on my line to save my life, and the wood was getting so hot it was smoking! Apparently, that was not the right tool for the job. I didn't want to pull the hubs away from his project (repairing chain in transaxel and installing a new drive line in the Jeep) so I got out my little miter box saw, then my coping saw. That was also futile. Good thing I was practicing on scrap wood, right!

Again, Russ saves the day with his trusty jig saw. That thing scares me, and every time I have tried to use it on small projects I end up not being able to turn a tight angle and messing up my work. I am going to look at Micro-Mark at some point for a smaller reciprocating saw option.

Again, I'll trade minis for knowledge if you can enlighten me!

The new door hole is cut, the new window hole is cut, and I used my trusty rip saw to cut the piece to fill in the old lower door hole. I even matched the clapboard perfectly!

Here's the new look to the front of the barn. Imagine a deck with stairs to get up to the door.

The upper stairs needed a little modification now that the landing was all complete. I ended up having to cut only one stair from the bottom. It was not a straight cut, though. It had to continue the angle of the stairs to tie in to the landing. For this, I used my scroll saw. I had to hold the stairs at the correct angle and slide it through the saw blade. Oh man! The blade wanted to bind up on me a couple of times, and I had to come at the cut from both sides of the stairs in preservation of my fingers, but I got the job done! Just a little sanding afterwards, and the stairs fit really well.

I attached the spindles on the upper stairs and made sure they fit through the hole in the ceiling. I added the railing pieces to the landing between the staircases, and I think it passes the miniature building code requirements for safety. I finished the weekend off by gluing the upper stairs to the landing and to the side wall. I am going to wait to install the handrail until I finish all of the trim in the room. This way, I have more hand room to work.

For my first set of stairs, this has been a gigantic learning curve for me. But, that's how we get better, and by the time I do my next project with stairs, I'll go in with more knowledge and confidence! I think the room is going to turn out great!

Sasquatch Lamps and Other Victories!

It seems like this barn project has been full of difficult challenges to overcome ever since I opened the box. I'm not usually put off by them, and usually I look at them as an opportunity to learn something. I do have a whiny threshold, though, and today I think I crossed over it.

I may have mentioned before that the barn is not the usual 1:12th scale. I knew that would mean doing a lot of modifications, but I welcomed the challenge, and a chance to learn to use new tools. I've managed to conquer many of them, but it seems with every new stage of progress comes a new problem to solve.

Point of fact; most dollhouse ceiling heights are between 9 and 10 inches. Therefore, dollhouse stairs are made for that height and angle. The height from my first floor to the loft is 14 inches. Okay, so you just add more stairs, right? Well that only works if you have enough floor space to accommodate that many stairs, and I do not.

So after I put myself on time out, I awoke from my tantrum nap thinking of two possible solutions. 1. Cut the first floor walls down to 10 inches. The problem with that is I have already installed the tapewire and outlets - all along the top of the walls. I would have to run new tapewire and install another dozen or so outlets. That idea very quickly lost steam.

Okay, option number 2. Turn the barn entry into a split level sort of deal. You come in to the door on a landing, then you can either go up or down. This splits up the stairs and I still have a little room for a sofa. This means I create the landing, cut the stairs for the lower level, move the front door opening up, move the front window opening up, fill in and patch the old openings, and create a deck with stairs outside to get up to the front door. Why this option you ask? Because I am a glutton for victorious moments, and this one should be monumental!

Here is the mock up of the split level entry. The silver lining is that I got to use my rip saw and discovered it is fun and cuts exactly how I want it to!

Okay, now on to the fun part of the day! I knew I wanted to make lamps for the bedside tables, and when I came across little unfinished sasquatch figures an Amazon, the idea was solidified!

They came with a little base for the squatch to sit on, so now all I needed was a way to hide the lamp wires. I just happen to have some cakepop sticks that are perfect. The base had enough room for me to drill a hole into for the stick.

I cut the stick into 2 pieces, each about 2-1/4. I then crumpled up a piece of lunch bag and decoupaged it onto the stick. A couple coats of various brown and they look just like a Douglas Fir trunk.

I always seem to have extra electrical plugs with wire, and various lights I pick up when I see cheap auctions on ebay.

I painted the sasquatches in several different tones of brown, going lighter where you'd expect less hair cover such as the face, palms and bottoms of their feet. I gave them amber colored brown eyes.

I painted the lamp shades a forest green color, so that the effect would look like sasquatch was passing under a tree. After a couple coats of paint, I sealed everything with matte sealer.

Assembling the lamps was pretty easy. I am impatient so when I have to take things in steps and wait for glue to dry, I get myself into trouble imagining the next project and doing research on the web to source supplies.

The wire provided on the little bulb looked sufficiently long enough, so I just had to put plugs in the ends.

Here is one of the lamps getting its test fire. We have liftoff!

Here are the lamps plugged in where they'll eventually live in the bedroom. I think I'll make some sort of burl and twig night tables to match the log bed.

I'm so happy that there are little victories sprinkled throughout the projects. That's what makes my heart sing and what keeps me imagining more!

Next Steps...

Now that the front wall/roof piece has been installed, it's time to tale care of a little housekeeping. The mini kind, of course...

The barn kit came with 6 pre-cut window openings, you know, so the horses had places to look outside. I enlarged 2 of them; one for the french door in the bedroom that will eventually lead to the deck, and one for the slider door leading to outside Russ' shop. That leaves one in his shop and two where the staircase will go. I'll decide when I get to that point what to do with them. The final one is upstairs, where the staircase and kitchen meet.

I decided to just trim it out on the inside and outside and make a plastic window for it. I like the way it turned out. The inside having one style and the outside with opposite trim.

















The next step was to connect the loft and the main floor electrical to make sure I had good connections from start to end of the tapewire runs. On the main floor, I installed a plug just above the floor, and on the loft under the staircase landing, I installed wires with a plug end. I also installed eyelets toward the top of the wall which the loft plug could also connect to. This way I have options when it comes to finishing and hiding the wiring.



After plugging the leadwire into the transformer, turning the power on, and poking the probe into several spots I had only one issue with a tapewire connection. Luckily, all I had to do was to replace the tiny brass brads with eyelets. This made a stronger connection, and then I had power all the way to the end of the run. Phew!

Next, I had to decide on a treatment for the ceiling. I settled on more thin wood veneer strips so that it would end up looking like an authentic barn roof. After the walls are installed I'll add some old looking beams to complete the look. In this photo the loft is upside down with boards and weights added to prevent the veneer from curling.

After the ceiling strips had dried, it was time to stain the wood floor. I just used a Minwax light oak color. It really only needed one coat and came out very evenly. After I had let it dry for several hours, I came back and applied varnish to the ceiling, bedroom wood walls, and floor.

It's finally time to install the interior divider walls. I needed to to give everything a dry fit so I can address any issues at this point.

Before the bathroom walls go in, it's a great time to add the towel racks, mirror, TP holder etc. It's much easier now with the help of gravity to glue on a flat surface and not try to reach into a 5 inch space.

The towel bars were a little too narrow to hold the fluffy towels I have, so I've added a couple beads to extend it. I also wanted to glaze the mirror frame to match the other bathroom fixtures. The glaze takes a while to really dry and lose it's tackiness, so I'll probably start making the bedside lamps in the meantime.

Things should start to get pretty interesting now that finishing touches can be added. Check back soon for more updates!