Monday, October 23, 2017

The Del Prado house, extra dormer windows

In my previous post about the Del Prado house, I mentioned that I was not happy with the boxy layout of the floor plan.  I spent a few days poking the inner walls, rummaging in boxes, and muttering indecisively before attacking the house with a jigsaw and cutting new windows and doors all over.
The first small change I made, was to move the right hand interior walls slightly, to make the passage wider.  Then I decided to turn the walls around so that the doorways in these two rooms are at the back of the house, not the front.  You will see later why this is important.  My master plan ha ha, which keeps changing all the time.
Ken Blake once sold me a box full of parts that were salvaged from a dollhouse someone never finished.  It's been languishing in the store room, I'd nearly forgotten about it.  Some of the pieces were brand new, others were broken and missing parts.  Note, three bay windows, I'm rich!  I selected these salvaged parts to add to the Del Prado house.
After some careful measuring, I took the plunge, and cut lots of windows and doors in the outer walls of the house.  I forgot to take a picture of the back roof, which originally had no windows.  I added two.
I cut the bottom off the two broken sash windows, and took the windows apart for repairs and painting.
This is what they became.  The beautiful net curtain is plastic tape on a roll.  I bought it at a scrap booking shop ages ago, for 'some day'.  Using all these bits and pieces from my stash makes me so happy!
Next, I built a box around each window, so that they could become dormers in the two attic rooms of the house.  Lots of cursing and swearing before I got the angles right, I'm no mathematician.  Note, the boxes were built from the discarded plywood of the original kitchen outer wall, I'm not wasting anything.  I did not bother to remove the wallpaper, since the roof will be tiled and painted.
Dormer windows installed.  I'm much happier with the house already!

4 comments:

  1. I love kit bashing. Don't think I've ever assembled a kit house without making structural changes and they've always turned out better.
    Adding dormer windows in the roof is going to make a big difference too... looking forward to seeing your progress week on week :)

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    1. I recently invested in the Beacon Hill house from Greenleaf, Sandra. Now I follow several blogs of people who are busy building theirs. I don't see anyone who isn't kit bashing as they go along. It seems to be an epidemic with us dollhouse builders!

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  2. Nice job, Megan! I love the changes! Your jigsaw cuts look great! The dormers are not and easy job to tackle, either, so high five on those! I love it when I actually use some of that "someday" stuff, too. Makes me feel better about keeping other things! :o)

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  3. More light - I LOVE IT! :D

    elizabeth

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