Journey into 1/12 Scale Miniatures

When Les asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year, I already knew months ahead of time. A 1/12 scale dollhouse! The miniatures hobby has always been a favorite of mine since I can use all kinds of art and craft skills to make tiny little treasures. To have a dollhouse of my own has been on my  mind for years. It had to wait though, until I was closer to retirement and not working such long hours. That day has finally come! Les and I recently went together to pick out my Christmas present.  Poor Les had to stand and stare at miniatures for hours. He’s such a good sport.After lots of deliberation, I chose the Victoria’s Farmhouse kit from Real Good Toys. 

As soon as the ground floor build began, I started thinking of alterations to the floor plan. Yep, that’s me, not content to do anything as prescribed. My first thought was that I want to make a contemporary dollhouse. I love modern-farmhouse decor, so that will be my route.

The photo above shows the originally intended plan with a wall and door dividing the living room from the kitchen. I want a more modern, open floor plan, so I will put a short divider jut so that there will be an entryway to decorate. There MUST be a place to deposit tiny little letters and keys after all. Furthermore, I don’t want stairs to interrupt the decorating- so no stairs even as cute as they are.

Here is a mock-up of the shortened wall that will form an  entryway into the house. Before putting that wall in, I will need to set a floor.In my mind, a store bought wooden floor sheet would be easiest (and fastest since I am anxious to decorate). But once I got the sheet home, it looked too “regular” and flat. I may as well have printed out a picture of a floor, it looked that unreal. The fix-step was to cut the strips apart and into irregular lengths. Then, the edges were sanded to give a more separate look to each board. Gluing the boards down individually brought up a whole new set of problems. Can you see, in the photo below, that the strips are of variable thickness? Who knew that a store bought sheet of flooring would have such high-low spots! After I glue all of the floor boards into place, I will sand them down again to have a more uniform thickness. I don’t want my mini people tripping over floorboards!

After a week or so of deciding, this is as far as I’ve come. I plan on documenting my little journey on every step of the way so, if you are into minis, stay tuned for future progress.