Back in July, in the throes of unemployment and with entirely too much time on my hands, I started thinking about Halloween. And then I started thinking about my party. And then I started thinking about a dollhouse theme. And then I went on
Ebay, bought a dollhouse, and officially bit off more than I could chew.
I thought, oh I'll just glue it all together and it'll be easy. Nope.
I started gluing door adornments together. Then I glued windows together. Then I realized I should be painting all these things before I assemble them because painting them once assembled would be impossible... unless I was miniature. So I went to buy stain and paint and proceeded to step 2.
Which is when I realized, holy crap, building a dollhouse is H.A.R.D. First I had to give myself a crash course in dollhouse building language, which is a lot of
RPs and Gs and numbers on wood pieces that fall apart and make you wonder if it was a 4 or an 8. Then I had to look at these strange drawings and squeeze my brain into knowing what partition 1 is and how exactly is should line up with slat 97.
After I got the thing mostly built, or at least built enough that I could tell what was going on, I was just about to burn out on the Dollhouse Saga of 2009. I wanted to get to the fun part of decorating it with cute
miniature things, but no. Instead it was time to decide if I wanted lighting. And if I wanted lighting, I had to know where I wanted it so that I could then make sure that my flooring or wall covering would cover it... if I lived long enough to get to the part of putting in flooring and wall covering.
I had to splice electrical wires together to make them longer and magically keep everything from short circuiting. I learned about transformers and
power strips and found some very adorable blogs by people who have made several dollhouses and are still not institutionalized!
Finding my fellow miniaturists gave me a good little push, but rather than work on finishing the inside of the house, painting and wallpapering and carpeting, I decided to do some siding work. Mainly because I realized I had none of the supplies necessary to do the flooring or wallpapering work I needed to do -- except painting. I could have painted but painting meant laying on the floor with my face mashed into the ground and getting hand cramps from trying to paint miniature inside spaces.
So, instead of heading to Hobby Lobby, which I discovered is a social destination for Pentecostals, I started gluing down some creep siding. It was colorful and came with an instant gratification factor that was necessary at that point.
You see that? You see that workspace up there. Well, it just so happens that the corner of our living room started looking like this right when the A&E show
Hoarders debuted. Mack and I would watch
Hoarders and look over at that corner and I had to swear to him that it was a craft project for Halloween and NOT a compulsion that would take over our lives. At least not for forever.
After the siding, I got to build the porch, and the porch was fun... once I consulted to dollhouse translation dictionary to discover what a porch roof was called.
The last major hurdle to building the house was putting on the third floor walls and dormer windows. That required a magic trick using wet paper towels and finger muscles I didn't know I had. But once that was all done, it was finally finished!
Almost. (Look, I warned you this was a saga.)
With the outside finished, it was time to look inside. I had to furnish my house. Which meant I had to go back on
Ebay and look for beds and chairs and tables and couches and art and books and a Ouija board and a crystal ball and a microscope and tarot cards and plants and magical money to fall out of the sky to pay for all of this crap that I got addicted to because it was miniature and cute.
While I waited for the furniture to arrive, I set to work hiding electrical cables underneath door moldings and carpet and wallpaper. Good miniaturists take care to cut out little channels to recess their wires. I just put electrical tape over mine to create a ramp up and down from the bump they cause.
And then, when the goodies arrived, it was time to finish my vision. To make the dollhouse I'd dreamed of come to life. To see the fruits of my labor. To finally make tiny dolls commit suicide.
And with that, the saga comes to an end... until next year.
Annnnnyyyywaaaayyyy, on Halloween I got into another mandatory photo fit and made everyone do their best scary face. This may become a new Halloween tradition, so consider yourself warned.
