I've spent the last 10 minutes digging splinters out of my hands. This can only mean one thing: I've started a new doll house.
Unlike the kit dollhouses I've done in the past, this house is one of my own design. It started as a little pencil sketch, based on a building I lived in while I was in New York. The ground floor was is a store, with the house up above. It was built in the late 1890's, and had 4 floors. The building was very narrow, but deep.
In school, I studied design for the stage, and I learned to make models of scenery from foam core. This has carried over into my dollhouse making--- any time I get stuck, I grab a sheet of foam core and build a quick model. The first thing I learned about my original sketch was that in order to get a house that's four stories tall, I'd have to make the house about four feet high. That's a little too big for my workspace. I immediately started working on a three story version.
The next thing I had to work on was the overall shape of the building. I originally thought it would just be a big rectangular box, but when I stood the sheets of foam core up, I discovered that it looked pretty boring. I tried setting the doorway back a bit, and I liked it, but not with the door to one side of the building. OK, the door moves to the center. The set back looked good, but it was still a little flat. I moved the set back up to the second floor as well, and it started to look a little more interesting.
I tacked on some windows to get an idea of size, and also to break up my plain white space a bit, and decided to make the house slightly wider than this model. It's looking like the outer dimensions of the house will be 36" high x 24" wide x 18" deep.
I love doing research, so off I went to find some buildings that might give me some ideas on architectural details. Thinking about this now will save me some time later. I went off to my favorite books, the Painted Ladies series, and found some interesting stuff to incorporate. Two more sketches came very quickly:
This one looks sort of like I took the very detailed top off of one building, and dropped it onto the plain bottom of another. Still, I'm getting closer to what I had in mind.
This is better, but still needs some thought. I have to sit down with some catalogs and look at moldings and windows, and also think about how much sculptured detail I want to take on. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I've at least settled on the outer dimensions of my house, and managed to go shopping for wood. I started out with some 1/4" birch ply, but the house would be pretty expensive, and also heavy, so I went for the 1/4" luan. I ended up with 3 sheets of 4x8, and 4 sheets of 2x2, which cost me around $20. From this, I can get the front, side walls, and floors. I'll probably need another small sheet or two for room dividers, but I'll get those later, after I decide what I'm doing with the interior. The smaller pieces of luan were easier for me to handle and transport that a full sheet, and since space is a concern for me, it was worth the slightly higher cost to buy this way.
As soon as I make a couple of decisions, I'll be ready to draw up some plans. I'll post those and show you a few shots of the early construction in my next installment.
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