I got a lot of work done on the kitchen cabinets last week. Pictures to come soon, I hope. I also bought a clawfoot bathtub to replace the triangular one I decided wouldn’t work. It has a neat little silver plug on a chain. It was marked down $10 because the plug was disconnected from the side of the tub — nothing a beading needle and a little glue wouldn’t fix. I’m so proud of myself!

I put the porch together this weekend. Decided there was no way I’d use the crappy trim that came with my kit, so I invested in some Houseworks components. Also had a few adventures with a saw and a sander to get the porch posts the right height (and managed to sand off the tip of my knuckle…)

The porch, with posts, railing, and spindles from Houseworks. Considerably nicer than it would have been if I’d followed the directions.

How it’ll look (roughly) once the gable is attached.

The idea is that the porch roof forms the “floor” of the gable. (It makes cute a window seat kind of thing on the second floor. I’m planning to build a bed into that space.) Geoff set up a jig for me so the gable could be glued into the right shape.

Gluing the porch roof. It’s not exactly level but I’m far beyond worrying about that.

Gluing the pieces of the gable together, in an attempt to force them into a 60 degree angle.

After taking these pictures, I also painted the front roof gray and attached trim to the outside of the doorway. Of course the front door wouldn’t fit in the opening (why should anything in this kit work the way it’s supposed to?) After a lot of sanding, I almost have the door the right size. The downside is, the paint on the edges of the door has been sanded away. If I were to paint them again, it would add to the width of the door and require more sanding to fit into the hole (see the problem?). So it comes down to this — the dollhouse people will have to live with ugly edges on their door. Too bad. (How often does one actually open a dollhouse door, anyway?)

One more pic. How come every time Geoff takes my picture working on the dollhouse, I look like a dork? (Don’t answer that.)