Kenzie's Korner Bake Shoppe

Note:  Kenzie will not receive this Christmas gift for another week (New Years Day) so, if you should happen to be reading this blog before then, please say absolutely nothing to Kenzie about this gift.  We would like this to be a surprise for her!

I've been busy the past few weeks designing and building a new dollhouse addition for Kenzie.  A few years ago, I designed and built a dollhouse townhouse for her and, over the years, we've added to the interior furniture and the number of dolls for the townhouse.  We've even added window boxes, shrubbery and a tree in subsequent Christmases.  

This year, Kenzie asked for some food for the dollhouse.  She wanted only food, presumably to put on her kitchen table and countertops.  She circled a number of items in one of my dollhouse catalogs so I purchased these items for her townhouse.  I still felt like her gift should be more than just a bit of food for her dollhouse, so...

Since Kenzie enjoys cooking and baking, I decided to make a bake shop in the same style as her Georgetown townhouse so I started sketching some ideas and checked my scrap lumber pile.  I had the lumber and I quickly came up with a design that I liked which was rather simple.  At this point, 'simple' was a good thing because I only had a couple of weeks to design, build and paint this gift!

I wanted this bake shop to sit next to the townhouse.  The townhouse has a sidewalk in front of it and I wanted to continue that sidewalk.  Placing the bake shop next door to the townhouse would work well.  I actually chose to make the bake shop a corner bake shop so that the sidewalk would wrap around the far side of the shop.  I even designed a narrow city-like alley between the townhouse and the bake shop.  

After sketching a few ideas and dimensions, I started with cutting the walls from a small scrap sheet of plywood.  I sanded the walls and painted the side of the plywood that would be the interior of the bake shop a subdued yellow... 

After cutting holes in the plywood for windows and a door, I assembled the walls on top of a base piece of plywood....

I decided to check my dimensions by adding the countertop and bakery display case to see if everything would work for moving dolls around just like in a real bake shop.  The dimensions seem to be just right for a small shop...

The front roof is just sitting on top of the structure to test its size....  looks good...

I decided to name this corner bake shop "Kenzie's Korner Bake Shoppe" and then designed and printed a sign on my laser printer.  This was printed on transparency film...  

Now it was time to add a stucco finish to the exterior of the building.  I also added grout to the sidewalks to give them texture... 

After the grout dried a bit, I carefully used a little styrofoam 'masonry float' to smooth the texture a bit as well as to square up corner edges...

After smoothing the grout and squaring edges, I carefully etched in some sidewalk expansion joints.  Before installing the windows and door, I pre-painted them white.  At this point in the project, they are still not glued in place...  they are looking good though when placed in their appropriate rough openings...

Below is another quick test fit of the interior furniture for this shop...  a view through the front window...

Here is a little bit of a closeup of the sidewalk expansion joints....

All the clamps in the photo below are holding the standing seam roof together as the glue dried.   For all of the parts prior to installing the roof, I had pre-painted everything.  This makes it easier to keep all the small details painted cleanly.  In this photo, you can catch a glimpse of the tile flooring I installed inside the bake shop...

The roof is finished and there is a nice sign over the front entry door...  "Kenzie's Korner Bake Shoppe"...

A display case filled with baked goods...  I chose and purchased all the baked goods separately... 

The display case is filled with cakes, breads and cannolis...

I painted the countertop and the cabinet white as well...

There is a tray filled with cookies on the counter...

The old townhouse painted yellow and the new corner bake shop painted coral sitting, side-by-side, attached to each other as the corner of a Georgetown block are just awaiting the arrive of Kenzie for our belated Christmas celebration...

These two dollhouses fit together well.  The paint scheme and designs match what would be found in Georgetown.  I think Kenzie will be happy with this new addition to her dollhouse collection!  

Remember, this is a surprise Christmas gift that she will not be seeing or knowing about for another week so, if you are reading this blog before then, please say nothing to Kenzie about this gift.