q is for quandie

Well shoot you guys, once again I managed to catch a virus on my recent trip.  How utterly frustrating and annoying.  I’ve gotten sick on nearly every trip I’ve taken over the last year or so.  I’m not sure where I’m going wrong.

First of all, I almost never get sick at home, only when I travel.  Second of all, I do all of the things while traveling.  I wash my hands frequently, I wipe down my airplane seat with a Chlorox wipe, I get plenty of rest, I exercise regularly, I eat right (OK, well, most of the time), I get the flu shot.  I did skip the Covid vaccine this year, mainly because as you’ll remember I got Covid on our Canada cruise in September so then you have to wait 3 months to get the vaccine, yada, yada, yada.

I do have a working theory.  About this time last year we signed up for an Am Ex card that gives us access to the Skymiles airport lounges where they have a ‘free’ buffet.  So for all of my recent trips (except Mexico), I’ve been treating myself to that buffet before a flight.  And I’ve gotten sick on all of my trips, except Mexico.  Coincidence?  Or is a germ ridden buffet to blame?

Well, I have another trip to my mom’s coming up in April so I think I’ll put my theory to the test and skip the lounge.  We’ll see how that goes.

All of this is to explain why I’ve been rather absent from the blog for the last week or so.  But I’m mostly recovered now and ready to get started on my next miniature project, the Christmas Cottage.

As I mentioned previously, my friend Sue gave me this dollhouse when no one in her family wanted it.  It even came with a deed showing that it was built in 1990.  Two lucky girls named Kristi and Dawn received it for Christmas.

It was built from a Greenleaf kit.  I googled it and it looks like Greenleaf is still in business.  In fact, they list this particular dollhouse, The Harrison, for $195 although it is ‘out of stock’.  I may end up purchasing some replacement roof shingles from them if I can’t find any that matches first.

My plan is to start by sprucing up the exterior.  There are a few repairs needed, some missing trim needs replacing …

and quite a few broken shingles do as well.

I also plan to remove the faded, and somewhat oversized silk flowers from the window boxes.

Not only are they a bit oversized, but they are all wrong for a Christmas cottage!

Once I’ve got the exterior in hand, I’ll move on to the interior.

It’s currently a bit sherbet-y with its Easter egg colored rooms.  I’m thinking that I’ll just paint all of the rooms in a neutral off-white to create a blank canvas and then go from there.

The house has 8 rooms, so it’s quite spacious.  In addition to the 7 rooms that are visible from the back, there is a fun little attic room that you can access through the roof.

Um, that green furry carpet is going to have to go though.  I hope that doesn’t end up being too much of a production.

It definitely looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me, so I think I’d better get started!

Stay tuned to see what I come up with for this dollhouse makeover.

I thought I should do a final wrap up post for my recent miniature project, the free-at-the-curb dollhouse.

But before we get to that, I think I need better names for my two semi-completed dollhouse projects.  So, from now on the free-at-the-curb dollhouse is going to be called “no. 42” …

and my original dollhouse, the one my dad made for me, is going to be called “the victorian”.

Now, I’m really torn about no. 42.  Am I going to keep it?  Or am I going to try to sell it?

I’m really waffling between those two options, and I think it shows in the finished product.  I furnished it just enough to make it impossible to price reasonably if I’m going to sell it, but I haven’t furnished it enough to consider it ‘finished’ if I plan to keep it.

So … yeah … I’m still on the fence about that.

But let’s see where I’ve ended up for now, sound good?

First up, the before.

I gave the exterior a fresh paint job and a few embellishments.

Then the interior before …

I updated all six rooms with new flooring and wall treatments, and I added some furniture to each room.  So here’s a breakdown of those costs.

The living room – $45.

The hallway – $2.

The kitchen – $16.50.

Oh, and by the way, I have added a new piece to the kitchen since I first shared that space …

I painted up a little Swiss cross stool to match the full-sized one that I have in my own house.  The stool cost $6.50, so I’ve added that to the original cost that I shared for the kitchen.

The blue bedroom – $38.

The dressing room – $41.

The rose bedroom – $53.50.

That’s a grand total of $196.  I should note that when I used items that I already had on hand, like the wallpaper in the living room or that fabulous cupboard in the kitchen, I did not include them in the cost.  I only included any new things that I purchased.

Of course, as you know, the original dollhouse was a curbside find, and thus was free.

So here’s my thought.  I’m going to list the dollhouse for sale furnished for $200.

But I’m also going to offer it unfurnished for $75.

That will cover the cost of the permanent improvements like the flooring and wallpaper.

The beauty of buying it unfurnished is that the new owner gets to furnish it however they like, which is really the most fun part of any dollhouse project.  I think $75 is a bit of a bargain, so hopefully someone else will too.

On the other hand, the beauty of buying it furnished is that you get all of the pieces that I created for each room including the perfect English sofa …

the cupboard in the kitchen …

the blue armoire …

and many more.

Let me give you an additional selling point for no. 42, the size.

At 24″ tall, 22″ wide and 14″ deep, it’s small enough to tuck on top of a cabinet or dresser, or tuck away in the corner of a room (or possibly at the foot of the stairs).

Another bonus for display are those over-sized windows.  You can see into the rooms rather well from the front.

I’ll be listing no. 42 on my “miniatures for sale” page, however, please note that I am not offering shipping on this one.  It’s pretty heavy and shipping it would probably be quite expensive.  But if any of my local readers are interested, please reach out via email to qisforquandie@gmail.com.

That brings me to my next miniature project.

This one needs a name now too, so I’m considering calling it the Christmas cottage because I think it will be fun to dress it for Christmas.  I know, I know, Christmas is 10 months away.  But this project might take a while.

My friend Sue gave this dollhouse to me.  It had been passed around in her family, but all of the various nieces, nephews, and grandchildren had outgrown it and no one wanted it, so she thought of me.

It needs a little work both outside and in, and I’m not planning to get started on it until after I return from a trip to visit my mom that’s coming up.  But stay tuned, there will definitely be more miniature projects to come!

In the meantime, how do you like the end result with no. 42?  Leave a comment and let me know.

The last room in the free-at-the-curb dollhouse is the living room.

Well, there’s also a downstairs hallway, but I didn’t do much there so I’ll include it in this post with the living room.  Especially since they share a floor.

So let’s start with that.

This is the Light Oak Gloss Finish Wide Plank flooring from Miniature Crush.

I really should have read the fine print (or even just the title) before I ordered it because you know me, I don’t love a glossy finish.  Also, I should point out that this sheet of flooring was $16.99.  The unfinished pine flooring from Hobby Lobby that I used on the 2nd level is $7.49 per sheet, so less than half the price.  Now, don’t get me wrong, the Miniature Crush flooring is definitely much nicer quality than the Hobby Lobby version, and if you like a glossy light oak wood floor, it’s perfect right out of the package.  It’s also peel and stick, so you don’t have to mess with glue.

However, for me the Hobby Lobby version saves me the next step, which was to lightly sand down that glossy finish and add a color wash using a very watered down Dried Sage from Dixie Belle.

Brush on, then wipe off the excess until you’re happy with the look.  The flat finish of the Dixie Belle paint really toned down both the shine and the yellowish color.

Once dry I added a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax for protection.

It was much easier to fit this floor because as you’ll remember, the ‘guts’ of the dollhouse can be removed.

So I was able to pull that out, peel off the backing and stick the floor down, and then put the ‘walls’ back in place.  Easy peasy.

Actually, while I had the ‘guts’ removed, it was also super simple to ‘wallpaper’ the hallway using some more of my Gulliver’s Travels book pages (I did this in my dollhouse project last year too).

I just cut the book page to size and adhered it with Mod Podge.

I added a framed vintage photo to the wall.  The photo is from my stash of old family photos, but it’s one where no one was able to identify the people in it.

The wood frame is from Michael’s and came unfinished.  I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean.

The chair is one I painted up last year as part of a dining set.

I have the set listed for sale on my ‘miniatures for sale‘ page, but so far there are no takers.

Also, FYI, purchased four of these sets from Hobby Lobby last year for $10 each but now they don’t seem to carry them anymore.  I did find the set on Etsy for $26.95 plus $6 shipping, but somehow paying more than 3x as much for it seems wrong to me.

Anyway, I’ve temporarily placed one of the chairs in the hallway, but I may have to come up with something else for this spot so as not to break up that dining set.

The ‘sisal rug’ in the hallway is another rug that I printed myself on canvas.

Back to the living room.  I used some leftover pieces of black and white toile wallpaper on the upper half of the living room walls.  This was leftover from wallpapering the bathroom in last year’s dollhouse project.

Then I painted some wainscoting in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth for the lower half of the walls.

The wainscoting was also from Miniature Crush, and I have to confess that I didn’t quite have enough to finish the back wall and since the sofa mostly sits in front of it, I didn’t bother.  I just left that back wall painted.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with my printed rugs by now.  I used one in the blue bedroom of this house, and last year I used one in the purple bedroom of my first dollhouse.

I wanted something similar for the living room, but in shades of grey, so it occurred to me that I could simply print the rug using the black and white setting on the printer, rather than in color.

And it worked out perfectly!

As for furnishings, I shared my perfect English sofa in my last post.

Now … full disclosure … I made an attempt at creating a tufted ottoman to go in front of the sofa and it was a dismal failure.  Maybe I’ll try again one day, but for now I’m just placing the coffee table from Temu in front of the sofa.

I purchased the coffee table unfinished.  To finish it, I applied some of the Sweet Pickins Dark Oil Wax using a small brush and wiping away any excess.  It worked quite well except in spots where there must have been excess glue.

I also created something to hang on the wall.

I used a small bit from the Roycycled Label Masterboard decoupage paper .  I decoupaged it onto a thin sheet of balsa wood.  Then I cut the square ends off some chopsticks, painted them in Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean and glued them on to the balsa wood to create a frame.  Super simple.

I adhered it to the wall using Tacky Wax, so it’s fully removable or adjustable.

With that I’m calling this project ‘done for now’.

I’ll wrap up this post with a breakdown of the money I spent on the living room/hallway combo.  Well … as for the hallway, that would be a whopping $2.  I already had the book pages I used on the walls, the sisal rug and the little chair.  The only thing I spent money on was the picture frame at $2.

The living room was a bit pricier, I spent $12.99 on the wainscoting.  The wallpaper was left over from my last project.  I printed the rug myself on canvas that I already had on hand too.  The sofa was $26 and the coffee table was $6.  So around $45 total.

I’ll be back next week to recap the entire project, and to share what’s coming up next, so be sure to stay tuned!