Now!

These pictures were taken today and sent to my brother (he had heard I was updating my dollhouse and hadn't known how much I was planning to do). 

Banister has been re-affixed, curtains have been assembled, rods painted, and curtains have been glued! 

Today I was sanding and painting two wood items I received from atriflesmall.co.uk. The piano and its bench have a dark wood stain I got from Meijer, and the color matches the old piano my mom still has from an older relative. I also painted the double bed pieces white, figuring that I could screw up "my" bed without worry. Looking forward to assembling my first piece of furniture soon, creating a mattress, and covering it with bedding. 

April - Today Progress:

- Further painting

- Window location, assembly, attachment, painting

- Carpet installed then uninstalled, "linoleum" installed

- Different carpet installed

- Curtains created, assembled, attached

May and June 2017 Updates

 

I wanted to take pictures of the front door just to remember how Grandpa originally made them. Here you can see the imprint of the duct tape he used to attach it to the house. (Yes, that good ol' Swedish know-how: duct tape! Right up there with the copious amounts of the Liquid Nail used on the roof. As I told my dad, I didn't mean to, but I kept asking Grandpa, the hell were you thinking???)

The front of the door. Same kind of tin material used on the banister and the windows. 

Michael's again for felt (they must be tired of me by now.) Much flatter, though my husband was shocked by the brightness of the yellow. In real life it's shag yellow, which is also shocking. :)

You probably also can spot that the top window panes in the living room are now wood. This has proven to be MUCH sturdier for that area (and a hell of a lot easier to cut to size.)

I went to Hobby Lobby for door hinges (which are probably too large the more I look at them), and bought fabric quarters for curtains and bedspreads. I began cutting strips for curtains and wood pieces for the rods.

April 2017 Updates

Further updates and paintings in April. At some point I also went home and took pictures of our old photo albums for context.

The original staircase banister Grandpa crafted out of a material I could find NOWHERE. :(

Staircase banister and pole painted to match the one in my parents' house.

(Shout out to local ads on my painting newspaper, lol.)

I found bracelet-making tin/wire at Michael's. I attempted to measure, straighten, and cut them as uniformly as possible, then glue them together (Aleene's.) THEN I painted. Not my best idea. Touch-ups have been constant; plus the 2 at the top of the giant windows in the living room stuck out way too much and kept breaking. Hmph.

Check out my awesome flashlight (to see crevices) and you can also see the bluetooth device with which I play podcasts while working (Stuff You Missed in History Class, You Must Remember This, WEDWay Radio).
I ordered carpet samples from FLOR (since my parents (STILL) have shag carpet) and forgot about the whole "scale" thing. Crap. 

Here's the Dremel (originally purchased to use on the roof) with the fireplace and top cut off.

I thought I could make the carpet work but once I put in the fireplace (UMF18) on it, its dimensions were suddenly off. I ordered bricking on sticker paper for the front of the house and fireplace and concentrated on that for the time (ebay - starboc1).

On the other hand, the paper for the bathrooms and kitchen went in nicely (DollhousesandMore). Note: since none of the flooring had anything besides the original wood, I painted a light coat of the wall color in each room so the wood wouldn't suck up the adhesive once applied. 

February and March 2017 updates

Observing the crap angles and trying to clean, I came to the inevitable conclusion that I would need to take the roof off to adequately and completely update the doll house.

Here is the house once I figured out I needed to pull the chimney top and front off to pry off the roof. It was kind of exciting and strange to think that the last time the inside of that chimney had been seen was when Grandpa built it some 25 years ago. 

Staircase in the living room and the wall next to it have been removed. You can see on the left where I tried to use a Dremel to get the nail out and was unsuccessful (scraping tool and screwdriver were used to leverage it off). 

Other things to note: the back bedroom on the left ("my brother's") lost part of its ceiling in the process which had to be rebuilt with wood spackle. The divider between that room and the one next to it ("his" and "mine") was glued down during the painting process as well.

A mix of water and vinegar with an old rag was used to clean and more filler was added to fix the gouges. Extreme sanding before and afterward (likely not enough, oops.) (Spackle, tools, and sand paper/items purchased at Lowe's.)

While cleaning and sanding, windows came off. This added another item to fix.

I repainted the chimney and the outside.

After researching the colors with old photos I had, I bought paint and brushes at Michael's.

This is before I painted the living room (hence the visible spacklings).

Total items accomplished in January, February, and March:

- Assessed the extensive damage from the passing of time

- Filled in holes with wood spackle

- Removed the roof

- Deep clean

- Multiple sandings and spacklings

- Painted inside and outside

January 2017 updates

Now that I have a basement in which to store and build, I brought the dollhouse to my home after Christmas to work on in spare time. I'll be updating the progress from the last six or so months. I'm very excited about how far it's come!
Here are photos from January after cleaning and using wood filler to fill in holes and such.

You can see the wood roof splitting from the metal piece underneath it. Between the windows is splitting. Nail on the right is coming through the wall.

Porch door off. Sanding dust on the porch.

Gouges! :( But lovely wood underneath.

Corners aren't straight.

Nearly impossible to get into the back bedrooms. The dirt and damage is extensive.

Wood filler on the master bedroom window.