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Dollhouse Construction Photos, Page Six
Furniture
The furniture also comes in high grade die-cut sheets. But don't be fooled, this isn't shrunken lumber, just very small pieces of wood. Sanding is a horror: the splinters are full sized and the shape of the tiny pieces can be radically changed before you're finished. This is a separate kit not included with the house. It's made by Scientific Models, Inc who have many one room kits.
I tried to build a chair from this kit. It was an absolute disaster! It included an iron-on transfer for the chair fabric, that unfortunately only half worked (I think it was too old). The chair came out so badly I actually threw it away. In retrospect I should have taken a picture of it, but honestly I was both frustrated and embarased by my results.
Here's the first real fruits of my labor. Not too impressive, but passable. It's difficult to get the pieces smooth enough to look real without changing their shape. Still, the table legs help make up for some of it's other short comings.
At this point I switched to working on the house. I didn't even think about this kit for over 6 months. I guess I learned a little in that time, as it wasn't so difficult when I came back to finish things up.
Here's the beginning of what ends as a desk. Well I've learned at this point that I'm not that good working with such small pieces, so I cut a few corners. For example the desk is supposed to have little cubby holes, working drawers, and actual handles. I've left them out completely. I know there's people who enjoy this kind of tiny construction, but I don't seem to be one of them.
Here's some shots as the glue is drying. I'm pretty happy with this piece. Notice the drawers (which are designed to actually open) are nothing more than boards glued onto the surface of the wood. I think it turned out nicely.
A couple of important points to go with these photo. The book shelves are supposed to set on top of the counter. It looks very nice that way-- in fact that's part of what attracted me to this kit. Unfortunately there's no wall in the dollhouse large enough to put it against if I built it correctly. Lots of windows leaves little wall spaces. So once again I "winged it" making extra pieces out of cardboard.
I also skipped a very complicated step of making the molding on the doors by once again gluing extra pieces to the surface.
(The roll top desk and globe are not from the kit; they came fully assembled.)
Both the wastebasket and the books employ the same idea of covering the wood with textured paper and printed detail. It works well. Even though the books are nothing more than a small block of wood with a hand cut slip of paper for a cover, they look wonderfully realistic.
I'm not as happy with the rest of the furniture kit as I am with the books. It is extremely difficult to work with this size of material. For example, my book case shelves all sanded to slightly different sizes and so didn't go together square. But even then, every thing except the chair came out pretty well.
I've gotten very good reports about House of Miniatures furniture kits. But I haven't worked up my courage to try one yet.
In all fairness to Scientific Models, this is what it looks like if you do it right. This is the photo from the box top.
I thought I'd throw in some more snapshots of pre-assembled furniture before going back to the house. Here's a harpsichord (a piano would be much bigger).
The quality of all the pre-assembled pieces I've bought has been terrific. Very realistic and well scaled. Unlike the rough pieces I made from the kit, they are very smooth. I've had a little trouble with furniture from Hobby Builders Supply getting to me broken. I had to glue one of the corner posts of this bed, for example. A piece on the harpsichord had to be re-glued. They've all been easy enough to fix.
Here's some furniture from an unlikely source. This is one of several sets from a Harriet Carter catalog. This one cost $10.98. It's nicely scaled but some what ill fitting. You can notice in the second picture that the chairs and table top are not quite level. Although it's not the same kind of quality as the more expensive pieces, it's a great deal.
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