The Dolls Houses

 Lake View House

I bought Lake View House in July 2019. It was in a bit of a state.

It hadn’t been put together very well, it was badly glued, dirty, dusty,

slightly broken in places, had marks all over it, and most of the magnet discs were rusty.

It had been neglected for some time. 

I removed the doors and after a thorough inspection my first job was a bit of demolition.

I removed the mezzanine level and spiral stairs

These blue eaves were badly glued to the top of the window and weren’t absolutely properly aligned, which I think was partly responsible for the door not closing properly. I didn’t know whether to leave them or re-do them but because they were so badly glued one was only half stuck and the other practically fell off. I hope I can align them properly.

I should be able to fill and then cover this with roof tiles.

These look much better now the house has been sprayed

There’s no way this was going to be fixed by just putting more glue on it so I pulled it off.

When I re-do it I will put some brackets underneath and attached to the wall for support. 

These railings were in a right mess

badly glued and badly spaced

I removed most of them and re-positioned them.

The doors are damaged and the wood around the pins holding the doors in place are broken. I have 3 options

1: leave them

2: fill with wood filler and work out how to get pins into both door and surround

3: buy new door units.

Option 1 is the easiest. Option 2 will be difficult because the pins holding the door in situ would have been put in place before putting the door into the surround. Option 3 is my preferred choice but with this house I want to see how much I can save by doing things myself. I will decide what to do when I get there.

I’ve cleaned and sanded all the other components.

I filled the holes where the stairs were with circles of foam board

I don’t have a compass so I worked it out by measuring the diameter,

marking a centre dot then 6½ cms each side of it, and kept going

It was almost a perfect fit, needing only minor adjustments.

The first floor needed two to completely fill the hole but the ground floor only needed one

because the main part of the house will be on top of it. I then papered the ceilings prior to spraying.

I filled these grooves, towards the top of the photos, where the mezzanine level had been

and then papered over them before spraying.

After masking the beams it was ready for spraying white. It needed a few coats.  The weather was warm  so I was able to leave it in the shed until I was happy with the coverage. There is a fine layer of dusty/misty spray in the shed now, ideally it should have been done outside but I didn’t want insects to land on it. 

I'm now working on making stairs, which is tasking the little grey cells!

∼ Be safe and well ∼ 

Polly x