The outside of the dolls' house comes up for discussion just as often as the inside. Right at the start, I suggested that we replace the 'roof tile'-patterned paper on the roof with some kind of proper tiling (most likely plastic sheets of ready-molded tiles). By and large, the preference has been simply stripping the current (peeling) paper, inside and out, and replacing it with more of the same, though I've often wondered if painting (at least for the interior) might be the better option.
More recently, however, my mother has found materials available on the interwebs which are mixed with water and applied to exterior walls via a stencil to give a realistic brick effect. How something like this will work with the 'framed' exterior walls of this dolls' house remains to be seen... but it certainly has potential. We may need to give it an undercoat of some kind to represent the cement between the bricks. A similar kind of thing is available for stencilling roof tiles, too... and that certainly beats faffing around with blocks, strips or individual tiles.
Plus, on the whole, they all look like better options than gluing anything to the external walls, since even the best glue isn't foolproof or everlasting... and, in the hands of a four-year-old, things glued-on have an amazing knack for coming loose...
Not sure if this is the particular website my mother was looking at, but here are examples of the exterior finishes...
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Thursday, 5 September 2013
Considering Doors
Not much of an update, but news all the same: in between domestic disasters of a slightly larger scale, my folks have been looking into doors for the dolls' house.
With some web-searching, they found Minimum World, 'The Online Dolls House Superstore', who had some kind of special offer on doors, so they ordered a set of 1:12 scale Streets Ahead "Collector's Item" wooden dolls' house doors.
The dolls' house wasn't built to any particular scale - and certainly isn't 1:12, as it turns out. Straight out of the packaging, the doors go right up to the ceiling on the ground floor (18.1cm/7.1" room height), and are about an inch too tall on the upper floor (16.1cm/6.3" room height) - but the more elaborate 'front door' could be made to work if cut down slightly. Such trimming would be tricky, but by no means impossible, due to the way the door is pinned into the frame.
Alternatively, now we've seen how they work, my father might end up making something at a more suitable size, and attaching them with miniature hinges. There was some discussion about the relative scale of hinges, with my father of the opinion that the smallest available hinges would be too large for the dolls' house, and me of the opinion that it's a dolls' house, and should be viewed as if through the eyes of a child, who wouldn't notice or care about such points of accuracy and authenticity as long as the doors open and close. I think this is one of those times we're going to agree to disagree until we have time to experiment...
Also, the question of interior doors was posed. Sure, having them would make the house even more realistic... but they'd be a bit of an extravagance and could actually have a negative impact on play, since a fairly large area of each room would need to be kept clear to allow the doors to swing, and an open door would obscure a good chunk of each room.
Whatever happens, the new doors (and windows) need to be larger than the tiny plastic things that were originally installed!
With some web-searching, they found Minimum World, 'The Online Dolls House Superstore', who had some kind of special offer on doors, so they ordered a set of 1:12 scale Streets Ahead "Collector's Item" wooden dolls' house doors.
The dolls' house wasn't built to any particular scale - and certainly isn't 1:12, as it turns out. Straight out of the packaging, the doors go right up to the ceiling on the ground floor (18.1cm/7.1" room height), and are about an inch too tall on the upper floor (16.1cm/6.3" room height) - but the more elaborate 'front door' could be made to work if cut down slightly. Such trimming would be tricky, but by no means impossible, due to the way the door is pinned into the frame.
Alternatively, now we've seen how they work, my father might end up making something at a more suitable size, and attaching them with miniature hinges. There was some discussion about the relative scale of hinges, with my father of the opinion that the smallest available hinges would be too large for the dolls' house, and me of the opinion that it's a dolls' house, and should be viewed as if through the eyes of a child, who wouldn't notice or care about such points of accuracy and authenticity as long as the doors open and close. I think this is one of those times we're going to agree to disagree until we have time to experiment...
Also, the question of interior doors was posed. Sure, having them would make the house even more realistic... but they'd be a bit of an extravagance and could actually have a negative impact on play, since a fairly large area of each room would need to be kept clear to allow the doors to swing, and an open door would obscure a good chunk of each room.
Whatever happens, the new doors (and windows) need to be larger than the tiny plastic things that were originally installed!
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