Starting With Good Bones

The first cut is always the hardest. I thought I'd get the hardest piece out of the way first so the rest would seem easy. The attachment for vacuuming sawdust on my Trio didn't fit my hose so I have to just suck it up. I did get the patterns all marked out on the wood and I have most of one fourth piece left over.

I got the 1/4" plywood from the hardware store and drew out my pieces from the instructions onto the wood. The wood I'm using is actually about 4 mm so it's lightweight. You can use two different thicknesses like the book recommends if you want to (quarter inch and half inch) but I'm going to just use sub-floor and then build up the walls with foam core and do a double thickness on the base - otherwise I would have to buy another whole sheet of wood. The actual thickness of the sub-floor is .17 of an inch, It's your house, do it the way you want. By the time you add the texture to the outside and the paper and wood support pieces to the interior rooms, it will be plenty strong enough for display and light grownup "play".

While I was at the hardware store, I got some vinyl spackling to use as a filler and wall texturizer. I don't like the crumbly plaster feel of regular or lightweight spackling and I don't like the heaviness and yellowing of wood patch. I prefer vinyl spackling because it spreads like butta... and it's white. You can sand it too. But you use whatever you like to work with when you make your house. My favorite go-to glue for just about everything is Aleene's Tacky Glue. It dries clear and it's good strong stuff even though I'm using wood glue for this house frame.

I'll get all my pieces cut out. Then I can do some light sanding and dry fit them together to see how they look. I can't glue the bathroom wall between the stairwell and bath in before I finish the second floor landing so that will be a little tricky I think.

I did figure out how to use a piece of wood as a guide for making straight cuts. I just had to read the instructions. Who knew?

WHEW! This is going to be a long term project with LOTS of details. I would be feeling overwhelmed if this were my first dollhouse build. Right now I'm still excited about it all but I'm kind of wondering how many years this is going to take me...