Big projects from little projects grow!

2004 Oddjob Lane: It is FINISHED!!!

The New Year is starting out with work being done on my dollhouses! I am actually making some progress on all those “unfinished” houses—well, at least those with fairly small finishing touches. The problem always is that even the smallest project becomes larger as it goes, takes longer than expected, takes more money than expected, and something goes wrong along the way … sigh…

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2004 Oddjob Lane
2004 Oddjob Lane was to have a fairly "minor" (but very attractive) upgrade: a mansard roofed attic with two rooms. Why did it take so long? I don’t know, but it went on forever. Every time I saw the light at the end of the tunnel—it was a train coming my way! It is true that due to a rather strange last year, I didn’t work on it steadily, but even when I put in long hours, not very much seemed to get accomplished.

One problem was that it took forever to find attic windows that I liked. Finally I found these on HBS. I think that these have just the right look, and they are for a Mansard roof!

The chimneys are finally finished and are removable since the chimneys are quite tall exterior chimneys, and it is better not to add them to the problems of moving the house.

BUT—it is finished, including the landscaping! Now we all know that a house is never really finished, but this one is at 99.8 % and I reserve the right to add a picture or two, or move a piece of furniture, but that is it. Besides, I was getting to the point of gritting my teeth every time I had to work on it. I am glad I did it and I love the way it looks … time to move on …

Just as a reminder, this is what it was when I bought it:

The Original Look

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MacPherson Farm—
I finished the chimneys and their pots, finally. Bricking the chimneys took longer than planned since the first go-round did not produce good results. The problem was that I was using MBS brick vinyl sheets to cover the chimney forms, and bending the sheets to make the front and sides from one piece (regardless of how easy the instructions sounded) was tricky. I will not use this method again. In some places the brick sheet bent nicely, but most times it just cracked—which meant I had a lot of repairing to do.

Mac Pherson Farm and its "impossible chimneys"

 

The landscaping is still waiting to be done. This should be fairly simple since there is only about 6 inches of land around the house.

 

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 Abigail’s Teashop and Bakery, and adjoining “Petting Zoo”, which is now a Stable for Pony Rides—
Basically removed all the old landscaping (which I was never happy with) and started over. I redid the “packed earth”, and replaced the dark brown lattice fencing (vinyl real house gutter guards) with white ones. I also added low picket fencing in front. Now that looks perky.

I removed the outdoor eating arbor. Now the tables (need another) are out in the open and the eating area looks much more inviting. I changed the flower, shrub, and trees combinations, and I added some benches and a fish pond.  What a difference!

The pony ride area was also completely redone. This was another area we were not entirely pleased with, but now!!

This all took quite a bit of work and time, but we are so pleased with the results that we have already forgotten how it used to look.

The new "look":

Abigail's Teashop and Bakery with ajoining Pony Rides Stable

Teashop with outdoor dining area

Pony Rides for young and old!

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My Basement Workshop –
We are redoing this area. I need a better organized basement. Right now, the work area and the dollhouse area are beginning to merge and everything has gotten messy. It’s time to make, once again, a workshop and a “town”. This time we are putting a wall between them—good fences make good neighbors. 

Some of the mess:

and the mess keeps going ... but you get "the picture"! 

It is tricky to divide one’s time between renovating the area while one is still working on the dollhouses. We are certainly making lots of bags of garbage, bags of no-longer used but good stuff to donate,  and doing lots of shifting things to the attic to make room in the basement—yuk!! It’s a long haul from the basement to the attic.

Of course, organizing uses up an incredible amount of time, first to figure out what should be thrown away and then to find somewhere to temporarily move the good stuff so the area can be neatened, and then one has to move all the good stuff back into its proper place. We have been working on this since January, and I think it will be late spring or early summer before we can sit back and enjoy the results.

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I will try to post more often so you know that I am really doing something positive, things just got a little overwhelming for a while. I have been reading posts even though I haven’t been responding but I will remedy that also. I love reading your posts—it keeps me sane.

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This year I shall finish anything that has to be finished on existing houses before starting a new one. I wonder how long that resolution will last... (hint -- it's broken already)

Stop the World - I am getting off

La Malcontenta -- a wonderful picture of a woman cooking in a Mexican kitchen.

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I don’t know where the time has gone—I did do a lot of work in my gardens but not that much—or did I? Anyway, just as I was putting the garden to sleep and planning to work with the little people, along came “Sandy”, and then came the cleanup from Sandy (I have never seen so many uprooted very large trees and downed power lines and in every which direction), then along came a snow storm, and then some hectic family situations and illnesses, and now we are into the hectic Christmas-New Year season!

I am sorry I have not posted-I think of you all and have tried to keep up with your posts. I think it will be the New Year before things here get back to normal—whatever normal is around here.

Anyway, I am trying to get the many things done for my dollhouses that I had planned to do way back when...

Things I have, or have not, done:

2004 Oddjob Lane:
The attic roof front is still not decided upon. I did sketch out a number of ideas between a center gable and,or dormers windows. So far, I am not happy with any of them. I did slate the roof sides, though and that looks good.

La Malcontenta:
Finally, a wonderful picture of a woman working in a Mexican kitchen is hung in the kitchen. I found it on the Internet, printed it, glued it to illustration board, protected it with acrylic medium semi-gloss gel, and framed it with white cotton cording to complete its “homey” look.

The landscaping is still not started, sad to say.

MacPherson Farm:
I haven’t worked on this house in ages and I decided that it’s time had come. I had always thought that this would be a great home for lots of paintings of ancestors, Scottish things, and horses (since this is a horse farm).

Finally, I have begun buying and making ancestor paintings, and even have some of them hung! The purchased paintings are from Miniatures by Amber on eBay. She has a nice selection and she prints on matte paper, which is my paper of choice.

Picture of back living room wall: the MacPherson extended family were privateers during the American Revolution and the War of 1812: one of their ships, the Timberwolf, and two of their captains, James and Charles.

The MacPherson progenitors: Jacob and his wife Patience, and their daughter Faith.

More ancestors.

It’s been a lot of fun making “ancestors” and I now have more ancestors than wall space—I guess it’s time to move to another endeavor at Mac Farm, such as finishing the chimneys!

Casa Lobo:
We finally finished the kitchen lighting. These are “swag” lamps from HBS and fit in well with the kitchen-dining room. The lamps are electric but the chandelier is battery operated.

 

I also bought an outdoor fireplace from HBS to help warm the astronomers on those cold Santa Fe nights at 7,500 feet.

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At first, I was not going to decorate any houses for Christmas, but I decided that since we always do something for Christmas, we would do Casa Lobo, 2004 Oddjob Lane, and the Wells home (the Original Rowbottom Manse). Pictures in the next post.

I will try to do better with my miniatures. I am on a very serpentine yellow brick road of life, but I guess I will get somewhere at some time!

A Room for Christopher at 2004 Oddjob Lane

A room for Christopher--expanding the attic. I built a two-room attic to replace the orginal "non-attic", and stairs to go to it..

Why, oh, Why?
A word about this dollhouse, why I bought it, and why I am trying to modify it and still keep it in the “mode” of the original structure.

This is a commercial dollhouse of a kind I have seen advertised as “Quick Build”. The whole house is finished; one just slips the pieces into groves, screws on the door hinges, and plays with it. I am sure many children were very happy to receive this house.

Original roof with "non-attic". I stuccoed the exterior of the house over a glossy white enamel paint..

Now you ask: “Why did I buy it?” –because I am a child at heart. I found it in a discount store at Christmastime on 2004. I walked in and there it was, surrounded by other toys and many kinds of Christmas decorations. I was enchanted and taken back to my childhood and the couple of Christmas dollhouses I received. I could not resist it. I called my sister and she wanted one too! My husband just rolled his eyes and got into the Explorer to pick up the dollhouses with no questions asked!

Well, then, you ask: “Why am I fussing with it?” I am just trying to make a few changes that the home owners, Dorothea and Ned Rumford want. (Always blame someone else!) The idea is to keep the nostalgia I felt about the house when I first saw it, but just add a thing or two. No going off on the deep-end stuff here—keep it simple. 

Ned and Dorothea read off the list of changes to be made to the house.

Some time ago, I did make a few small upgrades to the house:
Behind the Build: 2004 Odd Job Lane (Store-bought dollhouse) and Build Update#1 2004 Oddjob Lane exterior upgrade.

A project presents itself:
I always thought the roof on this house was a bit lacking the charm of the rest of the exterior (especially since I gussied it up a bit), but since I had plenty of other things to work on, I just made notes and put it aside.

In the last months, during a “I am disgusted with a lot of things” moment, I was just looking for something I didn’t have to do, but would be interesting, different, and keep me amused--something I could work on, on and off. Of course, Andrew was "willing" to help me!

My eyes fell on 2004 Oddjob Lane and its roof! OK, that was the project—but what was the project? I decided that since my sister had decided that a young child, Christopher, also lived in the house, he should have a bedroom. Now I had a definite project: remove the old roof, and make a Mansard roof with two rooms in the attic. Since the roof (attic floor section) is a complete structure and a separate piece from the first three floors, I could remove the attic and roof, and bring it to my workbench to work on. The house is 3/8” MDF exterior and ¼” MDF interior walls and roof.

The first thing was to investigate the roof composition. I drilled some holes to use to start cutting a small piece out with my jig saw. Once I saw inside, I put my hand and a large hammer in the hole and banged away from the inside. Bingo, the roof top left its base. 

The original roof is off! Now we can begin!

Now I had the attic floor which is solid 1/2” MDF as the starting point. This house is not very big (~30” x 13”) and since a Mansard roof would give more floor space than a hip roof, it was chosen. I decided on the pitch of the Mansard (15 degrees off vertical), figured out the sizes and shapes of the four pieces I needed, found ¼” MDF in my wood supply and cut the pieces. The front and side walls slope but the back wall is vertical. The attic roof is flat (see first picture). The attic will have two dormer windows in front.

The next thing to decide was how to cut into the third floor ceiling and in the attic floor for the staircase. We decided a straight run staircase would be best (the other floors have “U” turns). This did not leave any room for an attic landing, but since I could enclose the staircase in the attic, no one would know. I did decide on a bit of faux in that the working doors to the two rooms would be on the back walls “implying” that the stairs ended in a gracious, unseen rear hallway.

We tried to make the attic stairs look as much like the existing stairs as possible and this worked out with a minimum of grief (well, sort of...).

The stairs to the attic from the 3rd floor.

Stairs from the 3rd floor poking through the "ceiling".

Rooms being glued in place--the bricks and the bulldog binder clips hold the "angle" until the glue dries. The enclosed staircase from the 3rd floor is between the two rooms.

The two rooms:
First, I thought that Christopher would have a bedroom and a bathroom. But then I thought, “oh no, not another bathroom”!

So I decided that Christopher would just have a bedroom and it would be the larger room (11” x 13”) and that the other room would be a "den, library, game room" (11” x 11”). As with all my smaller houses, I first looked in my vintage Shackman stash for furniture. My sister and I loved this stuff and bought (and still buy) it. It tends to be on the “smaller” side of 1:12 scale and fits well into small rooms. Most of ours is well-made, cherry-wood, authentic copies of colonial/Early American furniture.

Putting a den in the attic allowed me to re-work the original den in the main house to make it more like a casual “second” living room.

I am not quite finished redecorating the casual living room. The lovely rug is from Minibeesknees' shop on Etsy.

Both attic rooms have 3” high knee-walls on their side walls so that furniture can be placed nicely.

A picture of the whole house. (Sorry, the picture is crooked, not the house.)

--Doors:
We bought working, pinned doors from the Wonham Collection (UK). They came beautifully finished in walnut.

--Wallpaper - Christopher:
We chose MiniGraphics “Brownstone” (I don’t know about this name since the wallpaper has a top border of cats, and cat or dog paws prints below). I decided to use the top border at the top of the wall and just use the “paws” as a wainscoting. I used YES glue.

--Wallpaper - Den:
MiniGraphics “Raffina” in blue gave the nicest Colonial look to this room.

--Flooring – both rooms:
To keep with the casual look of the interior finish of the rest of the house, I created a flooring of pine wood-tone Con-tact (vinyl shelving paper). This is something that I have done in other houses: Con-tact stuck to poster board and then cut into random-width strips. I glued the strips directly to the MDF with Elmer’s Glue-All. These strips are also used for the dado and baseboard in Christopher’s bedroom.

--Furniture - Christopher:
The furnishings are Shackman cherry wood trundle bed, dresser, and chest; “cat” chairs from a local dollhouse shop, and a rug and round table from our general stash.

Trundle bed closed.

Trundle bed open.

--Furniture - den:
The furnishings are Shackman sofa, desk, combination chair-table, candlestand round table, bookcase, and piano stool; and a table lamp from our stash

Chair-table as chair.

Chair-table as table.

--The Attic and roof:
The attic (its roof is still to be finished) has been placed on the house (so I can admire my handiwork). It looks so nice and Christopher is thrilled, and the den has a pleasant, cozy look.

The den with an Early American look.

Christopher's bedroom with an animal motif.

Christopher and his friends: Freddy Miller and Juanito Duran, and his wonderful yellow lab, "Mr. Doggie".

The Mansard roof will have two (yet to be made) dormers, grey slates, and probably a flip-up front. I will have to redo the chimneys.

House with unfinished Mansard roof.

--Slates:
I am making the slates. I found a great vinyl “slate” flooring tile at Home Depot. I scanned it into my computer and printed it out on Kodak Premium matte photographic paper. I then glued it onto illustration board with 3M Super 77 Multipurpose (spray) adhesive. When dry, I cut it into 1” x ¾” “slates”. I put a sample on the roof and liked the way it looked. Now I just need about five more sheets to do the roof. It’s time-consuming so I guess I will be "slating" for a while...And before I can even slate the front, I will have to decide on the style of the dormers and their placement!

The scanning the "slate" tile worked out well.

In retrospect, while this project is fun it definitely has not turned out to be the smallish, casual project I was imagining!
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Build Update#1 2004 Oddjob Lane exterior upgrade

While I always thought that 2004 Oddjob Lane was charming straight from the box, I also always thought that I could maybe "add something to it". (This dollhouse was purchased at Odd Job Stores -- now out of business). It was a completed house just needing putting together.

Original enamel painted house.

I considered, and rejected a number of changes: add 2 inches to the back of the house (the rooms are only 11 1/2 inches deep); add an addition with a covered porch on the ground floor and an extension to the living room on the first floor; change the roof line to a true hip roof and add a room in the attic; and some others. Only the roof change is still in the running.

About a month ago, I knew what the house needed--a more elegant exterior!

1. Stucco exterior. I used a "sand grout with glue" in Alabaster from Home Depot. This stuff goes on easily and stuck without any problem on a glossy enamel paint without sanding. Beware, though, this stuff dries hard; then corrections are almost impossible to make. The problems I had were that I could not remove the quoins, windows, nor other trim to make stucco-ing easy. Thus the finish is not exactly as smooth as I would have liked; but I am still pleased.
2. Quoins and balusters. I painted these with Duncan stone texture paint in Sand color. This color was too dominate for the stucco color so I gave them a wash of white paint (actually a couple of washes) to tone the color down.
3. Brickwork. The foundation of the house, full-height chimneys, the step risers, and the walkway were painted with DecoArt stone texture paint in Light Brown (really a red-brown). After it dried, I scored those areas (the house is MDF) into bricks. I could not score the chimneys. I used 1/2 inch x 3 inch pine and I had to score against the grain and it didn't work. So, brick chimneys are still up for grabs. If worse comes to worst, I will leave them as "brick-colored stucco".
4. Porch and step treads. I painted these with DecoArt stone texture paint in Grey
5. All the white enamel trim was repainted with a soft-white flat (real house) paint I had on-hand.
6. Landscaping. I am using (because I had it at home) green craft styrofoam as the "form". The grass areas will be covered with either Heiki or Noch grass mat. I haven't work out the landscape design yet.
7. The roof will be redone as a Georgian hip roof with one or two rooms in the attic.

The new look!

Closeup of porch and brickwork.

2004 Odd Job Lane- The Queen Anne Townhouse of Dorothea & Edmond Rumford, Alexandria, Virginia

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Dorothea Therese Wells & Edmond (Ned) Paul Rumford: Biographical Information
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Dorothea is the daughter of Helen (Duffy) & Arthur Wells. Arthur is the owner and publisher of the Daily Chronical, a position he took over when his father retired. The newspaper has been in the family since Arthur's grandfather left politics, bought the paper, and moved his family from Boston to Potomac, Maryland. Duffy is a professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland. Her family has always lived in Maryland and her parents are retired professors. It seems that Duffy also followed a family tradition! Arthur and Duffy meet as students at UM, and even Duffy worked at the newspaper while going to grad school.

Dorothea has two older brothers: Franklin (Johns Hopkins U.), is a surgeon and a Major in the Air Force, and George (UVA) is a partner with Derek Rowbottom in their architecture & landscape firm, Potomac Landscapes. Dorothea and her brothers grew up in the womderful older home in Silver Spring, Maryland...... where their parents still reside.

Dorothea decided to check out her Bostonian roots and to study Literature at Havard. She chose to live in Boston after graduation and to work at the same newspaper as her great-grandfather had so many years ago. She really thought she would stay in Boston forever until she came home one summer and met Ned Runford at a Derek Rowbottom party. As they say, the rest is history. She and Ned married and settled in Alexandria. One day, she realized that she would like to write children's books. Much to her delight, she now writes children's books-- books that are often illustrated by her good friend Rebecca Rowbottom .
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Edmond, usually called Ned, is the son of Arlene and Douglas Rumford. His father is a founding attorney of Spencer, Mason, & Rumford, a firm specializing in Estate Planning with offices in Williamsburg and Fairfax, Virginia; and Washington DC. His mother is Head of the Science Department at Fairfax High School. Douglas and Arlene met when they were both undergrads at American Univerity in DC.

Ned's younger brother John is a graduate of the Curtis Institute and a clarinetist with the Washington DC Symphony Orchestra; his younger sister Nina has a degree from Georgetown U. Law and is an attorney, also. Ned and his siblings grew up in a c.1850 classic revival home  in Fairfax, Virginia where his mother grew up and his parents still reside.

Ned followed in his father's footsteps, obtained a law degree from Stanford, and then joined the firm. He handles the multi-faceted legal work for Potomic Landscapes and for Rebecca's endeavor's. Between both of these, Ned is quite busy. He pretends to grumble, but he enjoys every minute and does a bit of traveling as a result of the business needs.

As Virginians, the Rumfords like to tease the Wells family about having "Yankees" roots!