Raising Dollhouse Walls with Glowforge

It’s a Dollhouse Room Box! Almost.

Another weekend, another step in my dollhouse room box project. Anyone else proud of my patience and only working on this each weekend? No? Just me? It is a big deal for me!

Dollhouse Exterior Trim

I knew I wanted to go for this type of style for the exterior of my dollhouse.

(Image from Dwell.com by Reagan Taylor that I found on Pinterest.)

I like the vertical trim boards as well as the white and black exterior.

I went to Joann and picked up all the tiny wood they had for the trim and quickly realized it was the same depth as my 1/8″ mdf. So I will save the wood I bought for furniture and used my draft board to cut from the laser cutter.

I pulled up my plans I have been working on to cut out the walls and flooring and started adding trim to it. In hindsight I should have done this first. But it’s supposed to be about learning lessons along the way.

I factored in trim on my windows and doors as well and sized everything and cut it from the laser cutter.

I started out adding the window and door trim, then the trim on both sides. I realized after putting it together that I didn’t consider the tabbed pieces, so I’m going to have to cut another piece to fill those in (that will make sense later when you see the assembled room box).

I even cut the red shapes as spacers to use for gluing pieces down.

As I’m working this project, I’m going in and updating my file for the plans. I would definitely add in score lines for where the trim goes so that it’s easier to see where to place the trim. But honestly the spacers were super helpful.

And, I mentioned before that I wish I had designed the trim first before cutting anything out including the walls. Because then I could have spaced the windows a little better to have the trim sit better with it.

Once all of this was done I put the two side walls together onto the front face.

(Why yes, I have found the Cadbury Mini Eggs for Easter at Target already)

What to Correct in My Dollhouse Room Box Project Build

So now that this is assembled you can see where I didn’t account for the tabbed corner joints and my trim. I will need to cut out two extra pieces for these.

I also noticed that my peak in gable didn’t appear centered because my trim in the center was slightly off to the left. Weird. I’ll have to double check that in my plans.

Dollhouse Room Box Floor

I let the walls dry overnight and on Sunday morning I put the floor together. I could have kicked myself because I put glue on the wrong side and had to clean that mess up before I could flip and do it correctly.

I love these corner clamps! I got them here on Amazon (affiliate link).

Here you can see the corners closer – gonna cut that trim today!

And, once again, I can see where I did NOT take into account the flooring and tab connections for the length of the trim.

But I’m getting ideas for doing a piece of trim across the bottom and top edges anyway. Some of those mistakes end up being happy ones.

If you want to learn more about my laser cutter, read my last post.

Tackling the Dollhouse Room Box Roof

And, also an afterthought is the roof. I want to make a roof that I can take on and off so I can get to everything easy. But the gable and thew ay I set up the trim on the corners makes this a little harder than I wanted it to be.

I’ve been test cutting scrap pieces of wood thinking it through. I ended up deciding to just trim it out for now.

I go this SUPER ADORABLE power saw to help with miter cuts. I mean, HOW CUTE is it? I got it on Amazon (affiliate link).

It’s super handy for these smaller cuts that I don’t want to engage the laser cutter. And, so far I love it. It comes with a blade. I need to purchase a backup.

I really don’t like the corners for the roof where it meets the side. I can think of so many different ways to do it in the future. But everything is glued down and I don’t want to risk ripping the MDF by pulling of pieces. So It’s gonna have to do as is.

So far everything has only been glued. And, I am going to have to sand down some of the area so when I prime it with spray paint those don’t look splotchy.

I am still milling over how to do the actual roof. I want to do wood beams with a white ceiling and I’m thinking there is some way to make the beams hit the sides of the house in a way that will keep it level. Here’s a picture I found online that would be similar.

Got any suggestions?

I test cut out my windows. You just never know if you’re going too tiny for a laser cutter as I wanted the single panes to be smaller. But I dry fit them and htey work okay. So I need to cut out the other window. I will use some acetate and probably double these up by putting that in the center. The windows will be painted black

This week I will sand any glue areas. Then, next weekend I can paint it all. Or maybe during the week. It’s snowing today and super cold so not a great time to spray paint anything.

But I’m exhausted and I think that’s all I can muster up today!

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