Living Room Update

I know I said I was going to post while I was away on holiday but it turns out that signal where we were staying was like gold dust. I'm not even sure standing on top of the caravan would have worked! I felt like my arm had been chopped off but I survived. 

Just before I went away, however, I decided to do the living room walls in half wooden slats on the bottom and half wallpaper. I haven't come up with an idea for the wallpaper yet but oh my word what a pain it was measuring out the walls for the slats I needed. 

Measuring a dollhouse wall whilst it is stuck together is extremely difficult especially since I only had a 15cm ruler and have only just found my tape measure. I measured, laid out all the measurements on a separate piece of paper and then placed the wooden slats - made of ice lolly sticks - on top of the measurements and then began sticking together. Told you I was going ice lolly stick mad! 

Unfortunately the glue I had wasn't super glue but instead some weird strong glue which I wouldn't recommend to anyone, being from hobbycraft I thought I'd be on to a winner but apparently not. It really wasn't strong at all. The slats wouldn't stay stuck together and were taking ages to dry so in the end I cut a backing piece of paper for the slats to be glued onto and that seemed to work. I even measured a skewer to go at the top of the slats to act as a kind of border. One side looks good so far but shall have to see how the others go. 

I'm glad I bought Ava sturdier dolls house furniture because the dolls house furni I had already is slowly but surely getting broken so I've put them away until she's older. I finally bought the dining room and living room sets too so it means I can swap out my dolls house stuff for the new stuff. They weren't even that expensive either. 

I'm getting all serious with this DIY Dollhouse stuff. I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to it. There are some really talented people put there!

Psst... I even bought some fat quarters to make some cute curtains. Well, my uber lovely sister, whose a whizz with a sewing machine is going to make some curtains for me. But that's another post for another day. However, here's a sneaky peek at the fabric! 

Fiddly Tiddly Bits

I think I'm going for a coastal look in the house because I'm liking this 'au natural' look of wood. I think I'm going lollipop stick crazy! But more on that later.

Last night I was doing the fiddly tiddly bits of the house, the bits that make it a little more complete. I finished glu-ing together the frame of the window that broke in transit somewhere and painted it white so it all fits together. It was a little fiddly because I sat and measured out where the grooves of the joins in the frame would need to be and carved them out with scissors. I'm thinking I need my own special pack of tools for all these random bits that I need to complete.

I also painted the front door white, and then red. It still needs another coat, and needs re-affixing to the house but, apart from that it's good to go. I love the red door. In my real life house I have those PVC doors that would cost a bajillion pennies to change the colour of so they're just plain old boring white. But, I love the colour red; in our bathroom the accessories are purple and the inside of the door is purple too! My husband thought I was mad when I said I wanted it purple but it's nice because it's just a little different. I wonder what door number the mini house should have?

My cat is very upset with me because I moved all the minature kitchen furniture back into the finished kitchen and he got confused because there were things in his sleepy-spot. Poor Milo. It still amazes me how occupied my daughter can be with the house though. At the moment she's been very poorly and not great with her breathing but she was still adamant that the dolls have "dinn' time" and then go to bed with her. Such a cutie.

One final thing, I've been notified by my mother that my blog isn't playing nice for those trying to visit. I have updated it so you SHOULD be able to subscribe on the right hand side of the blog and you SHOULD be able to see all the colours okay. I've turned off the mobile version but even then when I go to check it on my phone the font is different to what I have on my desktop so I'm tres confused. All I can say is bare with me until I figure out what the problem is!

The Finished Kitchen

I was going to stick some pictures onto the walls of my house kitchen, make it look a little more real but since I'm renovating it to be played with they'll only get pulled off or something.

Last night I finished my flooring, inbetween getting up with Little Miss because she wasn't feeling well, and at about 11:30pm both Ava and I placed the flooring down and she loved it! I really enjoy watching her playing with the house and that's what it is all about really. 

Today in the post we got the dolls house bedroom set for the children dolls and it's so cute. It has a rocking horse and a rocking chair! Ava loves playing with those. Now I only need the living room set and the dining room set. All the sets are pink but instead of decking the whole house out in pink I'm just going to nail varnish or paint the items for each room the colours to match the decor. Ava won't mind and it'll all look a lot better. 

I'm away on holiday next week (woohoo!) so instead of posting updates on how the house is doing I'm going to post daily inspirations on each of the rooms I've got left to do. For now though, may I present the dolls kitchen... 

Mini Kitchen Makeover

Doing the kitchen has not been as easy as I thought it would be but has been rewarding to see finished!

I sat and measured out my grey and blue foam and cut them into small tiles and set about placing them in the kitchen before realising it was going to take me a donkey's age before I would be finished. 

So I had to sit back and think about what I could do instead then remembered I bought some large wooden lolly sticks and decided to go twenty first century and make some shiny laminate for my mini kitchen. Annoyingly enough I had to cut down all the sticks, get rid of the rounded edge and cut them to different lengths so it didn't look so 'straight', if that makes sense? 

Then throughout last night and today I painstakingly pieced them all together over the whole of my make shift mat, which was measured out to the dimensions of my mini kitchen. 

So now the kitchen deco is finito and it is all ready for furniture - that is, if Ava stops thinking the kitchen furni goes in the living room - which is next on the list of rooms to decorate. 

Last night I also sat and made stencil shapes of the tiles on my mini house roof so that I can draw round them by the gallon and it makes it easier to cut and paste. Unfortunately though, not all the tiles are the same size and shape so I had to make 6!!! Different tile stencils. They took forever!

I would take a picture of the finished.kitche deco but my cat has decided he's going to sit in there for tonight. Hence my blog name, House of Gracie Cat :) 

House the Grace Built

So, when I was 16 I told my mum I wanted a dolls house for Christmas. She thought I was mad but I wanted it to be one of those things that stays in the family for generations. More lived in than just looked at. Then at Christmas and a lot of money spent later that's exactly what I got. I'm now 26 and my dolls house was stuck at my mums for a few years then at my sisters for a few months and finally, I had a car big enough to hold my house as well as all our luggage. So here we are. House in my living room.

My daughter thinks it's amazing fun, I however, am slowly going to do it up and make it pretty again instead of falling apart and in bits. I am not a professional at all with the dolls house thing. I don't really know what I'm doing. All I know is I want it to look pretty.

Last night I painted the whole front of the house in white and today I rescued the window frame by making a window frame out of bbq skewers!

I also took a trip to HobbyCraft, my new favourite place I think, and bought some felt to make carpet and some foam to make squares for a kitchen floor. See, I told you it's not really professional but it'll be pretty and be family friendly. I also bought some lovely wrapping paper that will be my wallpaper. I picked the foam for tiles after I picked the wallpaper and didn't realise until later that they'd look so good together. For now, this blog will show my progress. 

I almost forgot to mention, but, I also re-upholstered one of the dolls double beds because the old fabric was grotty and discoloured.