Tuesday, August 23, 2011

My Bostonian Dollhouse Blog

 Here's what I found...
Believe it or not, this is the Bostonian Dollhouse by Real Good Toys.  This 11 room mansion is a beautiful plywood dollhouse kit that retails for $729!  Only it was never finished by its original owner!  So this is my new project.  I will be finishing it inside and out and putting it up for sale when complete.  My goal is to have it done in time to make someone's Christmas dollhouse dreams come true!  When I finish with it it will look like this:

Bostonian Dollhouse Kit

 My first order of business was to completely remove the 3rd floor, which was falling apart and not glued down properly.  I also discovered the 2nd and 3rd floors were switched.  That meant the porch ceiling was all the way up on the 3rd floor making it impossible to create the porch correctly.  Not to mention I just had to get rid of that awful blue color!  I had a lot of priming to do! 
So I did a lot of work.  I managed to cut out the 3rd floor's porch ceiling and glue it down on the 2nd floor.  Believe it or not this was a piece of cake!  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was!  Well, as easy as busting out the saw and cutting it out just right then securing it one floor below could be!
On to the windows....the plus here was the original owners of the dollhouse did assemble most of the windows.  But they needed an extra coat of paint.  The doors weren't even touched so I painted them black with white trim and set about putting them back together.  Meanwhile work has begun on the new exterior color, a gorgeous yellow! 
Already looking better!
 As you can see the inside is a blank slate.  I decided to finish the true wood floors of the dollhouse.  So below is a picture of the stained and finished floors.  They're gleaming! 

Now, on to priming the interior walls and ceilings of the inside of the dollhouse.  The ceilings need to be painted white and and walls prepped for wallpaper.

The painting is coming along great!  What a change!
The interior has been primed, ceilings painted and the 1st floor wallpapering is done.  I have put in the 1st floor windows too. 
With some of the windows in you can really see just how beautiful this dollhouse is!  I have been busy painting the 3rd floor parts and soon I will be assembling it. 
Prime, dry.  Prime, dry.  Paint, paint.  DRY!  All day long I've gone back and forth painting.  They'll be ready to install soon! 
This is the start of my formal dining room.  It's going to feature crown molding and have a chair rail.   It's going to be gorgeous.  I'm also busy painting my baseboards and crown.  This room will be a real standout.   
 

I have been hard at work!  Today is Sept 17th and I have finally prepainted and intstalled the 3rd floor.  The interior looks like a hot mess but it's really coming together.  I'm going to work on finishing the wallpaper and then on to shingling!!  This is a huge dollhouse with so much roof!  I'll be shingling for days and days once I begin.  But it'll be well worth it!  Once I finish the bay windows on the 3rd floor I'll be ready to start...



The dormer windows have been installed and shingling has begun!  The entire right side of the dollhouse has been shingled.  It looks great!  I can't wait to finish the rest!  This is such a beautiful dollhouse.  I wonder who will get to call it their own...it'll be done in time for purchase for Christmas! 

Work is going great.  I just installed all the doors and started on the staircase. 

All the railings have been installed!  Ahh!  What a pain they were!  At least they're on and they look terrific.  Too bad for me all the posts didnt really fit inside the rails and I had to strip off the inside of each of them to make it work.  Not to mention all the painting! 

Ok everyone the inside is officially DONE!!! Hurray!  The Bostonian dollhouse is now complete!!!!  What a job!  I'm so happy with how it turned out.  I did the interior in shades of pink, cream, green and yellow with crisp white trim and doors.   These huge rooms took a lot of trim!  And this kit doesnt come with interior window trim so I had to make them myself.  Here are a few more pictures- enjoy!!! 








My Bostonian Dollhouse is finished!  Do you remember how it looked when I started?