Wallpapering

Here is how I wallpaper a room - in minutest detail......

 Bit of a note first.... MDF is thirsty wood.... I always coat all the surfaces with some ordinary household matt emulsion at the building stage to help seal it a little so that when I come to paint or wallpaper the project wood doesn't just 'suck off' the paint or glue.  If you haven't done this, you will need to prime the wood in some way before papering - watered down PVA is one way to do it -  otherwise the glue will soak into the wood and the paper can come away from the walls.

cut paper

Measure the height of the room and, if you are going to add a coving and a skirting, measure the width of those and work out how much paper you want to go behind them to give you a neat edge and how much of the wall you want left exposed for gluing the trim to securely.  If you use a fairly standard coving and skirting you are basically going to leave roughly half an inch of wood below and half an inch above your paper.  In this case my strip was - ten inch room height, less one inch (the two half inches), so I cut three pieces of paper into nine inch (tall) strips.

Preferably cut the paper with a knife using a steel rule as a guide; this will give you sharper and straighter edges than scissors do.  Now you are ready to start papering.   Always start at the back of the room.

cut oversize

[Try to imagine the chimney breast has not been papered!]  Cut a piece a bit wider than the area you are about to cover, in this case it is an alcove area.

fold one edge

Make a really sharp fold one quarter of an inch wide along one edge.  I actually mark the reverse side of the paper in a couple of places in pencil, put metal ruler along the marks and very, very, lightly score with my knife - this cuts some of the fibres in the paper and lets you make a really sharp crease when you fold the edge over.

trying the cut piece

Put the folded edge right into the corner, letting the little flap overlap onto the side wall.  Run your fingernails or tool of choice along the other edge.  If, as in this case you are joining to a chimney breast you would now add a little quarter of an inch flap to this side too.  Basically you want all the walls that face you to have little overlaps on to the side walls - these will be covered with the side wall (and chimney breast) papers and this will cover any nasty gaps in the dolls house walls.  I promise you there is no visible bump in the paper when its finished.  

Paste and stick the paper back in place.

unfasten the hinge

Because I like to put my main house doors on before decorating the inside I have to remove the hinge for papering or painting.  You want to avoid doing this too often (it should really only be necessary this once) as MDF is not a great wood for holding screws and they are very tiny.  You can always put the teeniest bit of superglue on the screw when you put it back in, but that's probably overkill.

The alternative, of course, is to work round the hinges.

border adhesive

I am using my usual border adhesive, fairly generously.  You can spread it with a brush or plastic glue spreader - or tool of choice.  I use my fingers - I can be sure it goes to (indeed, over) the edges of the paper and that it is a regular depth and I can feel any little bit of rubbish that may have escaped on to it.  Mystery where the bits come from!

dobbing cloth

Put the wallpaper in place, making absolutely sure you are running perfectly down the edges where the walls join and work your way away from there until it is all down.  Dab it down gently all over with a balled up soft cloth.  The action is called pouncing - I have no idea why

door solution

If you are papering a wall with a door already in place or just a door opening the aperture will need to be cut out first.  I have papered over the aperture (no door in place) waited for the paper to dry and then cut out the paper out from the space with a knife.  This works OK and is probably the only way to deal with a curved archway for instance.

However if you already have a door set in place you can run one strip of paper right along the wall having cut out the shape of the doorway first.  I have tried that only once..... expletive, expletive.....Now.....if I have a door to circumnavigate, I cut the paper the length of the wall.  I then I measure the length needed across the top of the door from its back edge to the front edge of the wall and cut off this strip.  Out of that I cut space for the door and the frame, measuring carefully.  I stick this upside-down, L-shaped piece in place.

can't see the join

The remaining rectangle is then just fitted in place.  If you have measured well, it will butt neatly up to the over-door paper and snug equally neatly into the back corner, covering the little flap of paper from the other wall.

all done

In this photo you can see that all the tops and bottoms finish all over the place, there is even a small gap above the door: this absolutely not a problem, the trims will cover all of these just fine.

One papered room drying out and waiting for its trims.

(29/08/16)

Finishing the roof

Versi Slates from Staceys Miniature Masonry are even easier to do than the bricks.  They are larger so they cover an area faster.  They need very little fiddling around with to keep them on line and in regular rows.  It is a simple case of starting from the bottom and overlapping by half a slate on each row as you go up.

If you have dormers to get round it is best to make a template with a scrap of paper for any awkward shapes so you don't waste a lot of slates getting it right.  Cut some paper the same size as a slate, put in place and make creases with your nail in all the places that you will need to cut out.  Cut out and check the fit, then lay the template on the tile and cut out the finished shape to glue in place.

template

tile fitted around the dormer roof

I did the roof area fairly quickly and then bashed on with the dormers.  It would be easier if they could be done before gluing them to the roof, but the ones on this kit were a fiddle to get right and needed to lay on the roof as part of that process, so the dormer roof tiling had to be done from every which way with them in situ.

Calculating the number of tiles is never and exact science and it can be frustrating to have to order a few more to finish but equally annoying to have a ton left over.  This time, incredibly, I had exactly the right amount of basic tiles.  As the last one went in place I couldn't believe my luck.

topped with ridge tiles

At the end of the whole job I was left with zero amount of ordinary slates, five ridge tiles (upper left in the photo) and three one-and-a-half width slates (upper right).  

finished

Then came the always fiddly job of attaching the roof to the house.  This is never a part of the construction I  enjoy but has to be done.  I am afraid I can't offer any handy tips to make it easier.  It is just a case of marking up the screw holes carefully and pleading with lady luck..... oh and the ability to work from all sorts of silly angles, whilst standing on a step stool.

Initially I only attach the roof flap with a single screw in each bracket.  The other half of the bracket which attaches to the ceiling is fully fixed.  I know I will need to remove the roof  flap when I come to work on that area as it will need decorating and blinds added.  The hinge screws are very short and they don't take kindly to be putting in and out, so best to leave out what you can until the final fix.

just one screw in place

So here she is - warts and all - god bless her and all who live in her...........

Dalton House

(25/04/16)

Fitting cranked hinges

I did some research on the best hinges for a heavy-fronted dolls house and the usual cranked ones win.  

I ordered and messed about with bits of piano hinge (and other ideas) but it is generally agreed that piano hinges are fine for small houses and light doors but by the time you get to three feet wide project and a doors with a basement attached, the screws will want to pull out of the MDF because one of the plates is screwed into the front cut edge and not the surface of the wood.

cranked hinge

The cranked hinges that came with this kit came with steel (?) screws.  I sent for some brass screws from Dolls House Emporium.  They were actually better value and decidedly the best fit (purpose made) than all the ones we could find in B & Q.

wrong colour screws with their replacements

Start with the doors rather than the box of the house.

My house needed three hinges down the side so I started with the centre hinge.  It doesn't necessarily need to be the centre of the door.  Each of my three hinges are 'centered' on each window on each floor.  As long as they are reasonably balanced and spread out the position is pretty much up to you.  Logic dictates that each hinge should carry about the same weight, so an even spread is obviously needed.  Mark on the edge of door where you want the centre of your hinge to go.

Keep the hinge really straight and press it hard into the side, looking for the mark you made; this will be where the centre screws will go.  Keeping the pressure on, mark where the screws are going to go.

Use a very fine drill...............

................to drill some starter holes for the screws - take care not to go too deep you just want a marker place to help you keep the screw in place when it starts being screwed into the wood.

For putting in the screws (if possible) use a good screwdriver.  I started with the little one on the right as I was only putting in tiny screws.  Unless you have muscles I suggest you 'upgrade' to a decent size one - in this case a ratchet screwdriver - it was just about ten times faster and easier.

Fix all the hinges in place on the door.  In this case there are three of them.  Now to attach the door to the box.............. 

Try to get your house in a position where you can stand the door side by side with the box.  Makes it easier than working with it at an angle.

shimmed up

The door needs raising a fraction just so that it isn't constantly dragging across the surface that you house stands on.  Anything you can find will do.  This is just a piece of trim from something or other.  Thick cardboard will do.... just something to get it off the surface.

Wrap the other half of the hinge around the box edge and repeat what you did with the doors.  Mark up where they go, drill starter holes and then fix on the hinge itself.

job done

Doors in place - looking like a house.