Scattered Thoughts . . .

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

It was another rainy, windy, cold day today so I was stuck indoors. I was feeling a bit worn out anyway so I probably would not have tried to tackle anything significant today anyway. Instead, I did some work on the dollhouse project. I'm in the finishing stages of this little project so any little bit I accomplish really makes a big difference in the appearance of the dollhouse. The "Georgetown" style is really becoming visible at this stage of the project and that is a relief and makes me happy. Sometimes projects can unknowingly morph into a different style. This project, however, really is identical to what I have always envisioned in my head... a Georgetown-style townhouse.  Today's task was to glue on all the little pieces of wood for the detailed cornice across the top of the townhouse. This was a bit tedious but well worth the trouble. I actually did contemplate just leaving this trim plain without all the little pieces but I knew I would be disappointed i

I've spent some time painting the doll townhouse the past few days. What I've been envisioning in my mind has been taking form in real life... and now, in color! I'm really liking this paint scheme and I think it favors the Georgetown Townhouse style I was envisioning.  The traditional yellow walls with a nice (but non-traditional) stucco texture... the clean lines of white trim... contrasting black window shutters... and a welcoming red front entry door... this is all coming together very nicely and is very reminiscent of the traditional Georgetown style. I'm actually getting excited as this homemade dollhouse comes together. The yellow exterior paint has been a major problem though... I think I now have about six or seven coats of yellow paint on this dollhouse due to some errors in choosing the correct shade of yellow. The first shade of yellow I chose was a bit dull. The second shade of yellow I chose was so bright that it had a bit of a fluorescent tint

(As I've written before when writing about this Christmas project, since Kenzie is still young enough to make it impossible for her to read this blog entry, there really is no problem in writing and publishing blog entries about her Christmas present so here is an update.) The front facade... before trim... before brick sidewalk... Despite my relatively poor health lately (and for the past three months), I've squeezed in some time here and there during the halfway decent periods to make some progress on the dollhouse Christmas project! It is still unassembled to make it easier to work on different areas of the house. At some point, however, I'll need to assemble this townhouse... glue, screws and nails... and then just finish it with tiny brushes and a lot of patience. For the purpose of this photo, I carefully placed the pieces together and then tied it together with a cord (seen across the top in the first photo). The windows and doors are just placed into thei