How the Doghouses Turned Out

Thought you might like to see how the dog houses turned out. I was able to snap a few shots of what some of the miniature club members did with their projects. All of the photos below were of various members' houses. Mine? Well, I was busy helping others, and later when I tried to fix something I'd done badly, the little house split in half! Oops.

New Club Project - a Front Porch

At our most recent meeting of the miniature club, we got to talking about what we might do next. I had an idea of doing a craftsman style house front porch, complete with a porch swing.

I've always liked the craftsman style houses - especially the gently sloping columns on the porch. Those should be interesting to cut out with my table saw!

Above is my PowerPoint "drawing" of what I proposed to club members. Based on the feedback I received, it looks like this could be our next project.

When I drew up the plans, my wife suggested that we make it a welcome sign. So, we will most likely cut out half-inch tall letters to set into the framed box below the house. We will make these so that they can be hung on the wall. I'm hoping they will be no more than about 8" deep.

Doghouse Details and Construction Instructions

Here are the instructions and dimensions for construction of the doghouse. If you want to use the picture from this blog as a template for cutting out the front of the house, copy it and paste it into a Word document (if you have Word). You can then resize the picture as needed to get it to where the dimensions print out exactly as drawn.

Here are the individual pieces you will need to cut out. The base is 1/8" basswood and the sides and roof are all 1/16" basswood. I have not sided my doghouse yet. I plan to do it with individual pieces of siding that I cut myself. I'll do a blog post for how to do that soon. If you use sheet siding, I recommend the siding that is ¼” rather than the ½” plank widths. You don’t have to side the house, but it looks really cute when it is.

Piece	Dimensions	Quantity
Sides	2” tall x 2 ½” wide	2
Front and back	2 ¼” wide x 3 1⁄8” tall	2
Base	2 ½” x 2 1/8” *	1
Roof piece A	3 ¼” x 1 15⁄16” (1.937”)	1
Roof piece B	3” x 1 7⁄8”	1
Inside supports	1⁄8” x ¼” x 1 7⁄8”	4
Roof beam	3⁄16” x 3⁄16” x 2 ½”	1
Siding – sides	1 15⁄16” x 2 5/8”	2
Siding front & back	2 1⁄8” x (about) 1 7⁄8”	2
Upright corners	1⁄16” x (about) 1⁄8” x 2 1⁄8” **	4
Sign for front	1⁄3” x 1 7⁄16”	1
*This may need to be sanded slightly narrower. **These pieces will need to be cut at a 45 degree angle on one edge so that they fit snugly against the roof line. The height is approximate and is the longer dimension of the pieces. You might want to cut this a little long and then trim it off as needed.

Assembly instructions:

1. Cut out all of the pieces, including the doorway of the house. 
2.  If you plan to side the house, use double-stick tape or use a slight amount of rubber cement to hold the siding to the face of the doorway piece. Cut the doorway entrance through both pieces. This assures you that your parts will match. Once this piece is cut out, sand the cut for any slight errors you may have made, and then disassemble the two pieces and mark the two sides that will be glued together (in case your cut is not perfectly centered or symmetrical).
3. Now you can begin to assemble the house. Glue one of the sides to the base. (It’s helpful to have a right-angle jig to clamp the side to so that the pieces are glued at exactly a 90° angle.
4. Glue the back of the house to the base and side, using the jig again for this.
5. Glue one of the inside supports into the corner.
6. Glue the other side to the back and base.
7. Glue the other inside support into the corner.
8. Glue the front to the base and sides. Make sure the side you marked to be glued to the siding faces outward!
9. Glue the remaining two inside supports into the corners in the front. 
10. If you want to stain the inside of the doghouse, do that now, before you add the roof. It will be much easier. 
11. Put a little glue on the inside at the top peak of the house at each end. Glue the roof beam in place. Make sure the roof beam angle aligns with the angles of the front and back of the house. (See drawing for the yellow square and note how it is angled.)
12. IF YOU DO NOT PLAN TO SIDE THE HOUSE, paint the roof pieces before you glue them onto the house. This will save you a lot of time and frustration of trying to paint the undersides of the roof close to the house.
13. Start with the slightly narrower roof piece and glue it flush with the edge of the roof beam. Put glue along all of the edges of one side of the roof, place the roof piece against this, then set the house down onto the roof piece, then push the entire piece up against your gluing jig or other fixed object. (This assures you that the roof is perfectly aligned across the top of the roof beam.) Make sure that the same amount of roof  is exposed at the front and back of the house.
14. Now add glue to the rest of the roof edges and glue the other roof piece in place. Use the same technique of placing the house on its roof and press it against the gluing jig to assure that the top edge of your second roof piece is aligned across the top.
15. Seal and paint your siding and the external upright pieces. Also seal and paint the edge of the doghouse front doorway. I recommend you paint this the same color as the siding.
16. Seal and paint the under sides and edges of the doghouse roof. If you're going to add siding, you don't need to worry if you get a little paint on the sides of the house. Glue the siding to the house starting with the sides.
17. Glue the back piece of siding in place.  Add the uprights on each side of the back piece.
18. Glue the front onto the doghouse. Add the uprights.
19. Now add shingles to your dollhouse. I would recommend buying or cutting shingles that are only 1/2" wide. In full scale, the shingles would be 6 inches wide, and that would look more appropriate on such a small scale building. I also would recommend spacing the shingles so that about a third of an inch of shingle is exposed per each row. The amount of shingle exposure is your decision -- like that of a cook when the recipe says, "season to taste." If you want to use fancy, shaped shingles, that is also your decision!
20. I plan to put the doghouse onto its own small base which will be about 6 inches square. I'll then paint it to look like dirt and grass, and perhaps I'll add a few weeds, maybe I'll even grind out a "hole" in the base, add a "mound of dirt" and put a bone in the hole.
21. Dog dishes would also be appropriate, but I'll leave the decorating details to you.
22. Don't forget to add the sign above the door (if you want to name your pooch). You can seal and paint the edges of the piece of wood and then print the signage (if you don't trust your own penmanship) and then glue that to the sign. (Remember to seal your printed sign with spray-on fixative so that it doesn't fade as badly over time.) Or you can hand paint the name in as detailed or as sloppy a hand as you want. 

Remember, many a doghouse has been built by the children of the family; so, you can feel okay about the finished house if there are a few flaws!  You might even want to "build in" a few flaws!

Good luck. Have fun with the work, and let me know how your house turns out! I'd love to see pictures!

Our Next Club Project

Our miniature club will be leading the project for our joint state meeting of miniature clubs. Over the weekend, our small group of our miniature club members got together and decided we'd work on building a doghouse. Above is the basic shell that I worked up yesterday. We plan to add clapboard siding and shingles. We'll also have the participants make old-fashioned rag rugs to put inside the doghouse, and we'll include a base that they can "landscape" outside of the house. If you'd like me to post dimensions and construction details, please let me know. Thanks!

Constructing Miniature Rooms - What's the Best Way?

What's the best materials to use to build room boxes or dollhouses? I've built two dollhouses from scratch - one with 3/8" birch plywood and one with Gatorfoam. (The photo at left is of a house built with Gatorfoam.) I was happy with both projects. But dollhouses are generally box construction projects. Unless they have turrets or bays, the building is pretty much 90 degree angles - simple to do.

Room boxes, on the other hand, are often more complicated. The design of a room box is like a stage set design. Few of the angles are actually right degrees. This allows the artist to create a variety of angles in the room and a sense of depth in a small space. It also makes construction of them more complex.

There are drawbacks to using both Gatorfoam and plywood. Both comes in large sheets. Cutting large, flat sections of wood or Gatorfoam, on a small hobbyist's table saw can be a challenge. At best, you'll waste more of the expensive building materials than you would like. At worst, you'll not get the walls cut precisely at the angles you need or want, leaving gaps and walls standing at awkward angles. Some of these gaps can be hidden with crown molding or with matte board glued to the ceiling of the room. Baseboards and flooring also help hide any gaps along the floor seams.

I've made several roomboxes now, and for two of them, I utilized old-fashioned, stick-frame building with matte board glued to the surface. The stick-frame uses pieces of wood assembled much like a real building is built. The problem with the stick built frame is that it's a bit flimsy until it's all glued up with the matte board attached. It's too easy to glue it up so and end up with walls not being perfectly square with the ceiling or floor.

The barbershop project our miniature club is working on is a perfect example. I cut out the pieces for everyone. The pieces were all the same size and shapes, planed to within microns of being the same in shape and angles. Yet, the four people assembling them ended up with slight variations in the finished product, and the angles of the corners are all slightly different one from another. Go figure!

The advantage of the stick frame build is it's lightweight, and you can easily run wiring through the walls or along the walls. The disadvantages are the irregularities you can get with assembly.

I have also done some construction with the paper-backed foamcore material. This material usually comes in quarter inch thickness. I have found two problems with it. One is that it tends to warp pretty easily. Add wall-paper to it, and as the paper and glue dry, the foam can become distorted.

I also find it a bit flimsy. It just doesn't seem like a product that will hold up for an extended number of years. If you don't intend on keeping your miniature creation for an extended period of time, then maybe it would be okay for your project. I plan to burden my kids and maybe even my grandchildren with my creations. ;o) So, when I build my pieces, I want them to be durable.

The most stable, light-weight and easy to work with material is the Gatorfoam. An added bonus to it is it's white. So, if you want white ceilings for your room, there's little or no painting that you need to do! The downside of the material is it's expensive, and not widely available. If you're okay with mail ordering, though, then you're probably good to go!

I started building Pam's dollhouse over 30 years ago, and the house is still as structurally sound as it was when I put it together. The ceilings are still white. The foam core has not shrunk. I know this, because no gaps have emerged.

You can't use screws or nails to put Gatorfoam together. I discovered, though, that a little glue and wooden pegs I made from dowels worked quite well. I used a pencil sharpener on the dowel pieces and then I used my X-acto knife to cut gill-like edges along the sides of the pegs. The sharp pencil-like tips made it easy to push the peg into the Gatorfoam, and the gill-like edges helped keep the pegs from pulling back out.

Even though I've built three dollhouses now, I still want to build a computerized, animated, haunted house. When I do, I will most likely use Gatorfoam to build it. And I think if I do another room box, I'll use Gatorfoam for that project, too!

Faux Marble Painting

     One of nature's more astounding creations is metamorphic rock. Specifically, I'm thinking of the crystalline form of limestone that is hardened from heat and pressure into marble. Marble comes in so many different colors and it's crystal consistency varies so much - anything from swirls of color to dense points of color. And in almost every case, it's beautiful! It's also one of the more fun things a miniaturist can create for a dollhouse or roombox.

      On the left is the faux marble fireplace I made a few years ago. In today's blog, I'm going to share the techniques for how to paint faux marble.

Step One: Sand your wood until it is smooth. Then paint the wood with a white paint such as gesso, Kilz or Zinsser Bin primer sealer. (I prefer Bin, since it is alcohol based and doesn't raise the grain of the wood like water-based paints can.) Sand the white paint until it is smooth. If any wood shows through, add a second coat of paint and sand it smooth.

Step Two: Decide on the color you want your marble to be. Green? Teal? White or cream? Or some other coloration? I use mostly Ceramcoat hobby paints. It's not that those are my favorite paints, it's just that the hobby store near me carries a wide assortment of colors in that brand.

The teal-colored marble at left was created using the following palette of colors:

• Med. Victorian Teal
• Cape Cod  (blue)
• Metalic Gunmetal Gray (Folk Art brand)
• Blue Velvet
• Dark Burnt Umber

 The beige and rose sample at left contains these colors:

• Fleshtone
• Georgia Clay
• Burnt Umber
• Sandstone
• Heritage Brick (Americana Brand)
• Blacksmith Black (Folk Art Antiquing)

 This green marble was made with these colors:

• Dark Forest Green
• Blue Velvet
• Mudstone
• Burnt Umber

And this one was made with these colors:

• Old Parchment
• Dark Burnt Umber
• Lt Ivory
• Burnt Orange (Americana brand)

If I would have had  another light brown or taupe color in my drawer, I think I would have added that to this one. (I'm not thoroughly satisfied how this one turned out.

So... now that you know the color schemes, here's what else you'll need:

• a very tiny paint brush
• a broad, chisel point paint brush (between 1/2 and 1 inch wide)
• natural sponge
• a cup of water
• facial tissues, paper towel or toilet paper
• a stiff paint brush

Below, you can see my first step with the green marble. I put some of my green paint onto some wax paper, then I dipped my half-inch brush into the water and then dabbed it into the green paint. I then

 unloaded some of the paint onto a piece of newspaper so that the brush was slightly less loaded with the paint. I then swished the brush across the boar. (Sorry for the slightly out of focus shot here.) As you can see, it was fairly intense in color. In fact, too intense for my first layer of paint. So, I immediately dabbed at it with a tissue, and thus the color became less opaque.

The photo below and to the right shows  how the color looked after I dabbed at it with the tissue. I continued to make dry brush marks onto the wood. I probably should have been more cautious to make sure that my strokes weren't all

vertical. As you can see here, there was a strong directionality to my strokes. The beauty of real marble is its randomness. So, make sure to be random with your paint strokes!

You can see in the photo at right that there's a second color beginning to appear. That was the dark blue color mixed with a hint of the green.

Next, I squeezed some of the  mudstone colored paint onto the newsprint and spread it out so that it wasn't a thick blob. Then I took a small piece of natural sponge and dabbed it into the mudstone paint. Then I gently blotted the grey paint over the green. I did the same with some of the green paint, and I did a small amount of this with some of the blue (watered down).

Notice how I left some of the white

peeking through the colors. If at all possible, you want to make sure that you don't totally cover over all of the white. This adds to the luminescence of your marble slab and makes it look more real.

The next step is to take a dark color such as black or dark umber and create tiny blobs of the darkness on your piece. You can do this with a the stiff paint brush. Get a little paint on the brush and then tap it on a sheet of paper until most of the paint is gone, then tap it onto your painting surface. If you get a large blog anywhere, immediately dab at it with a tissue. If that doesn't soften the color enough, moisten a tissue or a piece of paper towel and dab at the spot with the moistened tissue. Another way to get tiny dots is to take an old paint brush, dab it into the dark paint, and then flick your finger across the bristles so that the bristles flick dots of paint everywhere. (Make sure you're not doing this on your most prized antique dining room table!) It's messy, but it you don't get too much paint on the toothbrush, you can get a very nice, random effect this way.

If you want to tone down the piece, you can add a light wash of one of your dominant colors. Again, try not to paint the entire surface - swish the watered down paint across portions of your marble. Then dab at it with your tissue to keep the tone more subtle.

Finally, you need to create the fissures in the rock. That's where you use a very fine brush and use the black, burnt umber or other dark color and add the most delicate lines you can muster with this brush. These lines need to be random. Some connect. Some go a little ways and then take a sharp angle in another direction. This adds another interesting dimension to the painting.

And there you have it! Let the paint dry. Then cover it over with a couple coats of clear sealer to give the paint a deeper luster. With a modest amount of practice, you'll be able to paint a piece of marble that you can be proud of! Have fun with it, and don't be afraid to play with multiple colors!

Making Solid Furniture Pieces

    There are two basic lines of thought with miniature furniture making. One line of thought is to make the piece virtually the same way as a full-sized piece is made. If the full-sized piece has working drawers, then the miniature has them, too. If the real one has padded cloth seats, then the replica does, too.

    The other line of thought is, "If the people who view the piece will not be able to pick up or touch the item, does it really need to be such an exacting replica?" I have created a variety of miniatures and have used both philosophies.

    Right now, I'm building the shoeshine stand and chair for my barbershop. The picture at left is my working drawing that I did in PowerPoint. In real life, it would be a heavy piece; probably constructed out of oak. It reminds me a lot of the minister's chair that was in the church where I grew up.

    I plan to sit my barber doll in this chair, reading a newspaper or a hunting magazine. The main thing is that the seat and back of the chair will mostly be obscured by my little barber. So, do I need to put real padding and leather on the chair? I don't think so. I currently plan to make the black leather parts out of wood. I'll seal it; then paint it. I may even grind in some indentation into the "leather" so that my barber sits more comfortably (that way he won't tip over too easily). I most likely will glue him to the seat anyway!
    I also plan to make the drawer in the bottom fake. It won't be open and doesn't need to open; so, I will glue a piece of wood to the base to represent the drawer front. I'll add some knobs to this (small 

brads), and call it good. I did this with the dresser in the maid's room in Sara's dollhouse. It turned out okay. (You can see it in the background on the right side of the picture.)
     The nice thing about making a solid miniature piece is how quickly it goes together. Also, because it is not nearly as delicate, it holds up for a good long while.
    It's a good argument for making any furniture a child might play with in a dollhouse. Skip the fancy working drawers and delicate furniture. Make something the kids can accidentally step on without smashing it! And if they do break it, (a) you, the builder, aren't devastated that all your beautiful work has been wasted and (b) you can make a replacement piece in a heartbeat!
    I'll share the finished piece with you when it's done.