Gah, I hate trim. Especially on giant 1:12 dollhouses. But the Hillside Victorian’s going to be a beauty when it’s done…

I spent countless hours this weekend working on the embossed trim for the eaves. I started by painting the pieces I cut last weekend.

Initially I planned to leave it white. But the embossed design wasn’t as well defined on some parts of the trim than others, which turned out to be very noticeable once the trim was all white, and I thought painting it could help with that. Using a small chisel brush, I painted the flower portions with the dark blue accent color.

Then I painted the curvy lines around the flowers gold.

And finally, I filled in the little flowers between the big flowers, also with the navy blue. For four pieces of trim, the entire process took about four hours.

Up close there are a lot of imperfections. But from a distance I think it looks pretty good. And hey, it’s hand-painted! Can’t expect it to be perfect. Here’s how it looks on the house (not glued in yet).

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When we last saw the Hillside Victorian, she had cleaned up nicely under the light blue house paint and white trim, and was awaiting her navy blue accent color. I really hate painting trim so I’ve been kind of lazy about it, but here’s the progress of the last two weeks.

My first step was to mask off the areas around the trim I planned to paint with the accent color, to (theoretically) protect what I’d already painted. I went through a lot of tape. Then I painted the accent trim with a couple of coats of Glidden’s “slate gray,” leftover from my Rosedale.

I really made an effort to stay inside the lines…

From a distance, it looks great!

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