From Macro to Micro

While Ev has been building large-scale structures and garden accessories, I've been working away on my miniature house and garden. I realized, after the fact, that I should have taken pictures of the step-by-step process, but I didn't, so I took a few the other night of the progress so far on the dollhouse I started in January.

The staircase was a bitch. It was a special ordered fancier one than the one that came in the kit, and it arrived after I'd already glued up the house. That's when I realized it was too big to fit. So I chopped off some of the lower steps and part of the banister, reattached the bottom baluster and had to cut a big hole in the second story floor in situ, which was very tricky,since my fancy Dremel Stylus didn't fit in there very well.

I covered the gaping hole in the floor with homemade flooring (which has since been varnished and looks better than this. I'll be kit-bashing a second-floor railing to cover the ends of the floor boards.

Here's another view of the staircase and the downstairs. The wall is covered in fabric I had lying around that looked like wallpaper to me. The living room floor is covered in paper flooring we got at the Miniature Museum in St. Louis.

But here's the part I'm really proud of. I had Ev cut me a piece of plywood to mount the whole house on so I could create a yard, and I've had a ton of fun with the landscaping.

The pond came out of our burn pile. It looks like it was probably mud that's been burned at such a high temperature it turned into rock. The stepping stones came out of our driveway gravel and the trees were dead twigs out of a bush at the office. I used florist's moss and a landscaping kit for a train set to create the lawn, the walkways and the shrubs, and a product called "Realistic Water" with landscaping crap floated in it to create the duck pond (complete with duckweed).

Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with the rest of the interior ...