To Catch a Predator

My goal for this week was a simple one: get the doors on my dollhouse to stay closed.

This task shot to the top of my to-do list for one reason and one reason only:

The Standard Sized Qubeley.

               

In the one week since I have started my miniature work, this little guy has developed a hunger that can only be satisfied by EATING MY MINIATURES.  I originally had a chair propped up to keep the doors closed,  but my cat activated his boneless powers and used the chair to pop open the doors and pull out just about anything he wanted (see diagram below)

I don't know where his bones go.

So, I had to put a stop to his fun ASAP.  As you know from my last post, my attempt to use magnets to shut the door ended in failure, but I figured that my problem could be solved by simply adding more magnets!  Which meant only one thing:

Ohhhhhhh yeah!

Make sure to wear proper safety gear when Dremeling (because sawdust under a contact lens is something you let happen once.  ONCE.)   The hat functions as a hairnet, keeps my head warm, and makes me look like a low budget Bond Villainess.  

Before the Dremeling.  You can see the original larger magnet I installed around the second stair.

 

 

After the Dremeling

The magnet installation on the opposite door. 

I actually went to the hardware store specifically to pick up Dremel router bits to make magnet installation easier, so I flew through installing the additional magnets pretty quickly ("quickly" meaning under two hours while I was waiting for the glue holding the magnets in place to dry).  While waiting for the glue to dry I started to plan out where my wiring in my different rooms will go once my super awesome wiring kit arrives.

I can't believe this nonsense costs $160

  I figured that sockets are usually around a foot off the ground, so I found a book and pencil combination that let me draw a 1 inch line across the foot of every room (my dollhouse is 1/12 scale, so 1 foot = 1 inch.  I'm 6 feet tall, so a scale model of me would be 6 inches tall).  The upstairs bathroom is the only room that deviates from this.  I instead placed the line 3 1/2 inches high to simulate the height of a bathroom sink.  So that'll be oh so much fun to rig up later.  

The book I used is actually my dollhouse planning journal!  It was truly meant to be!

I also took the time to plan out furniture placement and where I'll run wires up to the higher floors.

The results of my day's work.  Doors closed, minis safe, and 6 magnet installed.

Next post will most likely be about my adventures in wiring.  May God have mercy on my Junction Splicing. 

  

Porch and Porch Accessories

         My day began with trips to two different craft stores, and even though I spent nearly $200 between the two I still didn't acquire all the stuff I wanted (namely a lighting kit), but I *did* return home with more sharp tools than I have fingers; including my new favorite craft tool:

BEHOLD!  THE MITRE SAW!

                                                                                             






















Just looking at a picture of that thing gets me weepy about the precision of my angle cuts!  I got so excited I bought three replacement blades because I just *know* I'm going to be finding objects around my home that could benefit from being cut precisely at a 60 degree angle.

Anyway, since work on the inside of the house is pretty much at a standstill until I get my grubby hands on a wiring kit (which will come after I figure out just how many lights I'm actually gonna' stick in the thing), I decided to limit my work to the outside of the house.

 I started my session first by attaching on the outside set of stairs, which included a set of inlaid magnets that I hoped would keep the front of the house from swinging open wildly at the houses' every whim.  Hours later this would result in total failure, but look!

                                                                                                        

Railings!  And my, look at the precision angles of that handrail!

While I waited to discover the verdict of my failed door latch, I made good use of my time by working on some minor fixed to the house.  I sheared off the sides of some balcony tiles that prevented the left door from closing smoothly, and added in a balsa wood support for the bottom of a weak door hinge - the most exciting part of which was using my new tungsten carbide reusable sanding block to custom shape the piece. 

    

So....incredibly....useful!  

The results of my sanding session.  

I still had time to kill waiting for clue to cure, so I worked on some porch decorations.  Here is a made up flower in the process of being built.  

But the star of the day ended up being my lavender plants.  I'm so stupid proud of how they turned out!  

So pretty!  

 And here is a finished shot of the day's work.  Not too shabby in my opinion! 

 And then I had my favorite miniature of my cat, Qubeley, model my newly made plants.  This picture is especially comical to me because the actual cat is terrified of the outdoors.   In dreams and miniatures, I suppose.

And So, It Begins.

Many years ago my sister owned a dollhouse.  This dollhouse wasn't your neon pink, plastic, barbie dreamhouse; this dollhouse was a handbuilt, unfinished wooden beauty that my Papa carefully crafted for her.  And it was awesome.  My sister and I took great joy in doing what little girls with nice things: we wrecked that sucker.  Marker scribbles on the walls, plastic melty beads suck in the balcony seams, and dents and dings on the roof shingles from fights narrowly escaping classification as MMA bouts.

As a child I wasn't bothered by this.  I was a rough kid and toys got broken.  No big deal.  Eventually, my sister and  I outgrew our interest in dolls and the dollhouse was sent to live in the garage with all the other 'kiddie' toys my Mema hopes grandchildren will put to good use.  I would pass by the dollhouse everyday on my way to the teenage staple called 'the soda fridge', and look at that doll house; that scribbled, dented, poor abused doll house.  Age wasn't kind to it.  The glue in the seams began to yellow, and dust settled between the shingles in thick sheets.

It was around that age that I had really started to create things.  Not just drawn pictures, but *things* that existed, that you could hold and manipulate.  I had begun to take interest and pride in my work, often marveling at the things hands are capable of creating, and wondered how my Papa felt when building that house.  I imagined him working on his Shopsmith, sawing and sanding and putting love into a gift for his daughter only to watch it be careless treated and disregarded.  I started to wonder how I would feel if I saw something I put effort and love into treated in such a way.

That's really when the guilt began.

I felt *terrible* that my sister and I had treated such a thoughtful gift so thoughtlessly, and sought to right the many wrongs I had shown that dollhouse.  My plan: Operation Summer Renovation.  I was going to use my precious summer vacation to overhaul and update that sucker.  I would sand, shingle, and shellac that bad boy until all traces of my childhood negligence were erased from the planet.  This would be no easy task for a girl with no carpentry skills in an un-airconditioned garage in the Virginia summer humidity/heat, but I was bound and determined to meet the task head on.  I went to my sister with my plan, sure that she would join in on my plans to make amends to the house we treated so badly.

Much to my surprise, she shot down my plan right from the start; no reason given except that it was 'her dollhouse'.  It was in fact her dollhouse, so I really didn't have any room to argue with her.  The summer goes by quickly and the dollhouse remains untouched.  The school year passes and as final exams roll around I find myself with renewed vigor at the idea of dollhouse renovation.  I approach my sister again, and the results are the same.

This pattern *literally* repeats for years.  All throughout high school and the beginning of college, Operation Summer Renovation never made it past the initial planning stages.  Finally, fed up with the entire situation, I ask my sister exactly *why* she won't let me make over the dollhouse.

Turns out she wanted to be the one to decorate it.

Well, hey!  Works for me!  I didn't want to decorate it in the first place!  I just wanted to fix up the damage we did!  She and I came to agreement that she would come up with decoration plans, and I would prep the house for her to go all HGTV on.  Sadly, the plans never came.  My sister lost interest in decorating the tiny rooms, and I moved out of my parent's house, loosing the free time awarded to me by summer vacation.  I find other projects to fill my time, and the dollhouse sat undisturbed in the garage.  

Years pass, I get engaged, and the wedding is fast approaching.  My Papa takes me down to the garage for a 'surprise' he's been working on.  Due to trips overseas it wouldn't be done in time for the wedding, but it was most of the way there.  I opened the door and there it was:


The dollhouse!  All fixed up!  Or, so I thought.  Papa then explained that this dollhouse wasn't the old dollhouse at all, but one he made especially for me!  Sure enough, the old dollhouse still stood where it always had, unfinished and unfurnished; and the one before me was newly assembled and freshly painted (in my wedding colors!).  

I was pretty much ready to load that sucker into my car and take it home, but Papa insisted on finished the railing installation on the outside before I took it home (which I agreed to).  The dollhouse was later delayed in coming home with me because we realized after making the trip to pick it up that it was too big to fit into my car.  I drive a Honda Fit, which according to the advertisements can totally fit a llama:



See all this hatch space available for comfortable llama seating?  Too small for the megalith of my dollhouse!

So I waited some more until my Mema and Aunt had a day off to drive it up in my Aunt's truck.

But it has arrived, and I have been planning.  

Planning, and waiting. 

Waiting for the right moment to begin what will likely be a decades long endeavor. 

Waiting for a 3-day weekend. 

That weekend was this weekend.  

And so, it began.