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Mansard Victorian – a mirrored bathroom door

Back in May, I wrote about how I made a false wall and ceiling for the Mansard Victorian’s bathroom. I never posted pics, but I went on to make false walls and ceilings for the bedrooms on either side of the bathroom.

The bathroom wall is set in a bit, to make room for the built-in linen closet and to make a long, skinny room shallower and easier to reach into. But the bedroom walls will benefit from having a larger footprint, so I set those false walls closer to the real wall. (This picture also shows one of my aborted bathroom floor tile attempts.)

The false walls will hide electrical wires, with outlets accessible behind the doors.

I had one spacer on the back of the bathroom wall, but it wasn’t enough to keep the wall from twisting and sitting crooked when I pushed it in. The foamcore was also bending, since the cutouts for the door and linen cabinet left so little material on the left and right sides. I added more spacers, along with strip wood to reinforce the holes.

The wood around the door hole will hold the door so it’s flush on the visible side. The wood around the linen cabinet gives me something to glue the cabinet to.

I also glued a piece of scrapbook paper to the front side of the wall, to help prevent those skinny pieces on the left and right from bending.

Next I disassembled two more of the Real Good Toys doors and reassembled them with solid panels, as described here. The one on the left is for the bathroom and will have a mirror inset in it. The house where I used to live in San Francisco (built in 1925) had a door like this. The one on the right will go in a bedroom.

I added wood filler to the cracks where the wood pieces meet, and then painted both doors. Here’s how the bathroom door and the cabinet will look next to each other.

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Mansard Victorian – bathroom floor & recessed medicine cabinet

Oops, how is it fall already?! The Mansard Victorian has been sitting neglected all summer, but I’ve finally made a little progress on the bathroom. My excuse for the delay is this little bundle of joy.

Her name is Daisy and she was estimated to be 6–9 months old in July. We’ve been working on things like potty training, sleeping through the night, not eating acorns and plum pits off the ground, not cowering in fear when a stranger says hi, and not chewing on carpets and furniture.

But look at that face!

And that sploot!

Anyway, it’s been hard to get into my workshop for any length of time, but she’s settling in, and today I was able to get back to the Mansard and figure out where I left off. Back in May, the bathroom floor was next on the to-do list. Here’s how I left it.

I made this floor using the same scrapbook paper / Gallery Glass method as the kitchen countertop. Cutting, gluing, and Gallery Glass-ing these tiles took a loooong time.

And… meh? After all that work, I’m not feeling it.

I considered a few other options (which I won’t bore you with) and then got my hands on a few sheets of this embossed blue and white tile. I like it, but the blue wasn’t quite right for the green trim in my house.

Did somebody say Gallery Glass? A dot of light green on top of the blue tiles comes close to the Bauder-Pine green color I’m trying to match. I still have more dots to do (these also take a long time!) but the end is in sight.

I have a Cassidy Creations wall cupboard kit to use as a medicine cabinet. When I was making the false wall and ceiling for this room, I got the idea to recess the medicine cabinet into the wall.

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Unfinished Bespaq kitchen for the Turret House

It’s been a couple of years since I touched the Turret House. I have a tendency to go all-in on a dollhouse for a while, and then put it aside for an even longer while. (Ahem, speaking of which, I’ll have an update on the Mansard Victorian soon…)

To refresh your memory, this is an ornate Victorian bashed from an American Craft Queen Anne Rowhouse, which I’m decorating with over-the-top colors and details. I’m planning on a fancy interior as well.

Last week, during a late-night eBay search, I came across this unfinished Bespaq kitchen and impulsively decided I needed it for the Turret House. I paid $245 with Buy It Now. I’m glad I happened to check eBay before bed, because I’m sure it would have been gone by morning.

I have a similar kitchen set that I bought ten or more years ago for the Little Belle (which has also been sitting, untouched, all this time). Both of these kitchens also include an island, which you’ll see farther down. The walnut kitchen did not come with a sink.

I paid significantly less for this set (I think $20 per piece), and someone on one of the mini forums later informed me that it was a knock-off. I didn’t notice until too late that the cabinet next to the fridge doesn’t have the medallions that are on the other cabinets.

At the time I was aware of two 1:12 kitchens made by Bespaq. One was the Provincial, which has medallions.

The other was the Mercer, which has plain doors.

I assumed mine was a half scale Provincial, but after someone told me it was a knock-off, I looked into it and learned that there was only one 1:24 version of this kitchen, which had plain doors like the Mercer. Long story short: my walnut kitchen was not genuine Bespaq, but I didn’t care. It’s still a nice set and I got it for a good price.

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