My order of Bonnie Lavish kits included a counter top and sink. The sink is made of wood—three skinny cutout pieces that are glued together to create depth, and a bottom piece with “drains” scribed into the wood. The photo below shows the sink parts after the three cutouts were glued together, but before the […]
Tag: Half scale (Page 19 of 22)
Recently there was a conversation on the Yahoo half scale group about Bonnie Lavish’s kitchen cabinet kits. She discontinued these several years ago but said she would cut some for people on the list who were interested. Since I have two half scale kitchens to work on—the Fairfield and the Rosedale—I jumped at the offer! […]
This weekend I assembled some furniture kits for the Rosedale. I’ve also been plugging away at the interior trim, but I’ll wait until it’s done to post pictures… it’s not very interesting progress. I started with the Mission style bed from Daisy House. (I happen to have this kit in 1:12 as well, but haven’t […]
Soon after posting the pictures of the Rosedale’s wallpaper borders, I realized the blue border downstairs clashes with the blue front door. Why didn’t I put them next to each other before gluing in the border? Ah, that would have been too easy… Since I’d used up the Brodnax designs, I found some nice samples […]
Since the Rosedale’s rooms have all sorts of wonky angles (some intentional and some a result of the bash) and since I really hate cutting crown molding, I decided to use wallpaper borders instead. I’m not entirely happy with the results. It was hard to get my hands into some of the tiny corners to […]
With the exterior (mostly) finished, I turned my attention to the Rosedale’s interior details, starting with hardwood floors. I’d intended to use coffee stirrers like I did in the puzzle house but was concerned about them getting in the way of the front door, which fits right into the doorway without any extra clearance. Then […]
I wanted a corner couch for my Rosedale’s second floor TV room, and unable to find any modern sectionals in half scale, I decided to make my own. IKEA furniture tends to have clean, straight lines—perfect for miniaturists like me, who don’t have the tools or the patience to get too fancy—so I checked out […]
The Rosedale is shingled! I used Greenleaf’s diamond shaped speed strips. I needed about two and a half packages. I stained them with Cabot semi-transparent Mission Brown stain that we had a sample jar of (Geoff bought it for a house project and didn’t like it). My first step was to cut strip wood to […]
With the front door finished, I moved on to the porch door. This one is a Houseworks door and it’s a totally different style than the other door and the windows. I’d already cut the pediment off the top, which left the door frame looking kind of plain, especially compared to the fancy front door. […]
The Rosedale has an awesome front door. In fact, along with the stairs, the door is probably my favorite part of this house. Its trim is made up of several separate pieces layered on top of each other, so unlike a Houseworks door, it’s super easy to use multiple paint colors without making a big […]
I have a love / hate relationship with windows. I hate them because there are so many trim pieces to prep… but I love them because once they’re up, the house starts to really look finished. Something about dressing up those gaping holes turns the house from a mere shell into a house. I started […]
With the house assembled and stuccoed, I moved on to the fascia. (A fancy word for trim! I’m not exactly sure if this is the correct usage of the word “fascia,” but that’s what the Rosedale’s instructions call it…) I first had to decide on trim and accent colors. Since I accidentally painted the house […]
I usually use clapboard siding on my dollhouses, but stylistically that didn’t seem right for the Rosedale. In the workshops I’ve taken with The Guys from Texas, they taught a technique for using watered down wood filler to create a stucco texture. I’ve never done it on my own (let alone for an entire house!) […]
I finished assembling the Rosedale this week. Before gluing in the third floor and attic, I cut the wallpaper and ceiling pieces that would to go inside. It was much easier to figure out the shapes with the parts unassembled, particularly the angled wings and attic. A few weeks ago, I assembled the big room […]
Before continuing with the Rosedale’s assembly, I needed to cut a hole for the second floor staircase, and to do that I needed to buy some teeny tiny saw blades for the Dremel tool. These came from Micro-Mark, and they weren’t cheap, but they’re exactly what I needed. I haven’t used the Dremel much and […]
Since I’m adding a third story that wasn’t in the original design, the slanted roof pieces needed to be cut to meet the third floor walls at a right angle. I also needed to create side walls. Since the right wall hadn’t been used yet from either kit, I modified these by cutting off the […]
My dry fit gave me a good idea of how to move forward with the Rosedale. The time has come for the permanence of glue. I started by putting together the new wing. Since there aren’t tabs and slots to connect these pieces to the main house, assembling the wing independently before attaching it to […]
And now… part 2 of the great Rosedale dry fit adventure! Last time I got the first and second floors mostly figured out. Before moving onto the third floor, I decided to add a porch door to one of the small rooms on the second floor, to access the balcony. I thought about bashing the […]
With the Rosedale stairs built, it’s now time to figure out how this house will fit together. I’m calling this “part 1” because I haven’t begun to fit together the new third story and roof yet. For now, here’s the progress I made this afternoon on the first and second floors. No glue yet, just […]
The Rosedale has a really cute stairway. I like how it has a landing and then turns the corner, and also how the stairs are tucked out of the way, like in a real house. Since I’m bashing two Rosedales together, I have an extra set of stairs, so I decided to add them to […]
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.

