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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Little Red Cottage

I started a little cottage about a year before I started Annika's house. Let's say sometime in 2004, I opened the box and started assembly. No, I didn't take pictures because this happened back in my personal Digital Photo Dark Ages. We had a crummy digital camera and rarely used it.

I was just going through an old notebook of presentations I co-wrote for one of my old jobs and found a to-do list for this house, with notes for Annika's House and the log cabin (which is now Eric's fort) that I still have not finished. The list dates to 2005.

I started with the Lafayette dollhouse by Dura-Craft. At first, I was not positive what I wanted it to look like, but I knew I wanted to go with a patriotic theme of red, white, and blue. My inspiration came from a few pieces of furniture I bought. They were from Robin Betterley's Liberty Bay living room furniture line.

At this point, I don't remember the exact details of assembly. I glued individual square shingles over the entire exterior walls. I added cedar shingles to the roof. I didn't add apex gingerbread trim. It needed to be more simple, more rustic. I went through a number of paint samples until I found the right combination of dusty blue, barn red, and cream.


I custom mixed the gray paint on the base and glued on tiny aquarium rocks.


I wanted to stay consistent with the interior color scheme. I picked up scrapbook papers with muted stripes, stars, and things that would flow together.


I had some thin brown faux-suede fabric leftover from an American Girl doll outfit that became the bedroom carpet.


Now, this little house is still unfinished. I have to complete the tile flooring upstairs, wood flooring downstairs, the baseboard trim, the 1st floor chair-rail trim, the windows, and the door. It has been sitting around in more or less the same state for 2 or 3 years. I have a sheet of pine random plank flooring waiting for me to place downstairs.


Once I get some free time (warm weather = garden time) and other dollhouses finished, I will resume work on this one.

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