Dollhouse Interior Board and Batten Wall and Flooring
Dollhouse Interior Board and Batten Wall and Flooring
It’s been two weeks since I have worked on Aspen Miniature. Lot’s of family stuff going on.
It’s been in the negative temperatures so it was a good weekend to stay in and just play with progress.
Poor Paint Job
After staring at the paint, I attempted to do some cleanup with acrylic paint.
Awful.
My paint was so goopy – like it has snot in it.
I ended up ordering some chalk paint and new sponge brushes that will arrive this week. Hopefully it won’t look as streaky.
I am not a fan of wallpaper unless it’s like a bathroom or some accent wall in a hallway. So I knew I wanted to paint.
Building a Board and Batten Wall
Then, after watching a lot of home decor Tik Toks I decided I would also build one of my walls as a board and batten style – in blocks.
I used 1/8 sticks I had and created a spacer to help me get it all lined up. I painted the wall first as well as the outside boards. Then, painted it all again once it was assembled. I love this look.
I had to put in flooring first so it could go under that wall’s baseboards.
I had designed some and it printed so gray. So I ordered wood plank flooring on Etsy from Jessica Cloe and it did the same thing. You can see from the photo on the Etsy listing it’s different. Oh well.
I wasted a lot of ink trying to get my color right, playing with color profiles in Photoshop. I honestly wanted it more brown/golden. But I just settled for what you see.
So I know my designs are good, it’s my printer that’s being a jerk.
Window Trim
I also had all of the window interior trim cut from a few weeks ago so I painted it and put it up.
I decided on a craftsman look. I have no idea if all of these styles go together but I like them. And, isn’t that was decorating a house is all about? Doing what you love?
It Is What It Is
Clearly I need to caulk. Since I had so much trouble with the wood filler I ordered some caulking in a tube.
At this point I am truly not happy with the quality of the paint job. At all. I will attempt to clean it up with the chalk paint when it arrives.
But there’s no going back now.
What would have made it better? I honestly thought spray painting was going to be the best thing.
Help! What could I do differently next time?
The Front Door
The Glowforge said it was too cold. No really, it did. So I designed the door in Illustrator and will cut it when it warms up again and attempt to fit it. Here’s what I designed based on this photo I found.
Now I REALLY want to do a porch.
I promise I’m not really this negative of a person. It’s just that darn paint!
I don’t know what kind of acrylic paint you are using but the best I have found for dollhouses is highly pigmented with very fine pigment. Something like Liquitex Professional soft body acrylics. It’s more expensive than craft paints but will cover better with fewer coats in a thinner layer.
https://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/ is a great place to find miniature wood trim like baseboards, window and door trim.
And to follow up on the electricity, a company called Cir-kit concepts sells packages with all of the materials for the copper foil tape method. It is so simple and no knowledge of electricity is necessary. There are actually outlets and switches, in scale!
You are doing great work and I’m having so much fun following you.
Cris
Thanks Cris! I’m learning. I learned a lot about painting for sure. I wanted to get that right because I did order a bigger dollhouse kit and I don’t want to mess that up. I used just generic paints from the craft store. I think that was my biggest mistake. If you’ve been following me on Instagram I was using chalk paint and people’s rec and I believe the acrylic under just didn’t react well. But I’m about ready to just call it done and use it all as a learning experience and just finish the project out and decorate inside. I will look up that that electrical setup! 🙂