PAINTING

"Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic."  - Ambrose Bierce

Painting a dollhouse is nothing like painting a wall or an actual house.  There's tons of little details, and sometimes the paint runs.  Covering up tons of little mistakes take lots of time.   I started painting last Thursday January 12, 2012 and I still am painting.   The great thing, TRIM it covers up problem areas, such as corners.   

WHAT I NEEDED:
1) Paint Brushes
2) Paint
3) Wood Stain
4) Cedar shingles
5) Doll-Rods

WHAT I USED:
1) I used artist paint brushes that I already had in my house from crafty projects.   I needed something small to get at all the trim, and get into the small cracks of the siding.
2) PAINT: 

• Valspar (Sample Size) Black Ice for the Shutters.
• Valspar (Sample Size) Red Door for the Front and Balcony doors.
• Valspar (Sample Size) Taupe for the siding.

3) Cedar Wood shingles and Wood glue, cutting and replacing all the broken shingles.
4) Wood Stain:

• 1st- I tried Mirmax Red Mahogany -  BIG MISTAKE!  It's way too dark and purple.  Good thing I tested it on spare shingles before applying it to the roof.
• 2nd- I used Mirmax Providential .  Perfect color. You can't tell from the photo but it has a slight red hue to match the doors and it's dark enough to contrast the paint color.

5) Doll-Rods.   This was the most agonizing part of the process.  Measuring and cutting each piece, painting and waiting for it to dry.  Then I had to chisel aways the end to have it fit in the frames for the balcony.  Then I have to press down and wait for the glue to dry.  Just one section of the railing took 3 hours of my time.  NEXT TIME - Buy it pre-made.  It's worth the investment financially.

BEFORE:

AFTER RESULT:

 As you can see, it's not perfect.  There's still much more touch ups that need to be completed.  There's trim missing, and I need to go back & fix the areas the paint bled.   The roof also needs some white paint removed from the singles. 

 From this angle you can't see the red doors.  BUT there will be a front porch swing that will be red, and upstairs on the balcony- I'm considering putting out red lounge chairs.

 The RED front Door.  If you remember this door was broken off.   I had to remove the frame, sand it down re-glue the door back together and paint it.  Took about 4 hours. From this angle you can see some yellow from the old paint color behind the shutter.  Unfortunately, these 4 shutters could not be removed before painting without damaging the shutter and the siding.  I have to paint around them with a small brush.  This will be touched up later.  I also wired in the new outdoor lamp- because I had to redrill the hole and remove the old broken fixture and scrap off the old glue from my childhood poor repair job. 

 Balcony Door.  I'm considering placing a stain glass insert on this door's window.   If you remember this Door was also broken.  It was also removed, sanded and glue, paint and placed back on to the house.   This door took much longer than the front door to complete.  I spent about 6 hours on & off getting this back together.  In the future if this breaks- I will invest in buying a new one. 

This is the side view of the railing.  It was agony putting this together.