Finally dredged this project out of the doldrums!!! After a trip to the local dollhouse store, thinking seriously about buying a smaller kit to tackle, I drove back home and decided to just throw the house together. I was really unsure about routing grooves for hardwiring the electrical (I decided against tapewire) and knew I'd make a mess of the floors. Not to worry, I will be laying down a "real" hardwood floor on top of the groves.
My biggest stalling point was deciding how many lights and where they would be placed. This delay was almost 3 months of indecision! Finally, I decided on using a minimal lighting plan - at least one light per room and one outside coach light. Perhaps 12 - 16 lights max. My original idea was 24+ lights and I decided that was just too adventurous for a first time play dollhouse.
Here's a pretty ugly picture of the groves that I'll string the electrical wires through. Ugly, but quite functional. I did the majority of the routing on the large flat sheets of plywood before constructing the house shell. However, a few of the routing lines I put up later (forgot one, added another) when the bulk of the frame was glued and nailed together.
I'm going to string all the electrical wires to the side and down the OUTSIDE of the house. This will all be covered up by the chimney/bricks!! If there was no chimney there, it would be covered by clapboard. Either way, it's covered and it reduces most of the problem of any wiring "showing".
Our five month old kitten, Simone, has been a constant helper in this project. Our five year old cat, Jadzia, finds this all to be quite the bore and spends her time elsewhere. Simone's nose is usually about two inches away from action - whether it be a hammer in motion, glue bottle being squeezed, tape being ripped, or a dremel buzzing away. Correction - she would like to be two inches away when I have the dremel out, but she gets firmly removed from the room instead!!
Gluing and nailing and gluing and nailing. This kind of putzing takes quite a lot longer than I thought. Small porch roof, two bay fills, front steps and underneath a roof constructed of four different pieces (to accomidate various angles and bevels).
At this point the opening bays are taped in place so they dry with the correct angles. They will be removed once fully dry and installed with brass hinges much later.
The tower is finally installed, along with the porches. There really isn't much left to do in construction, the next big phase will be completing the interior ceilings (textured paint?) and installed electrical system. Erg.
And a shot of the back. I am leaving the third floor open and not installing an optional wall. That area will be a reading/library/play room area. I've pretty much installed as few walls as possible, as I tend to enjoy the idea of decorating larger rooms.