Undersized Urbanite- Yay Progress!

First thing I see when I log onto blogger today, Christina posted the March update for the Undersized Urbanite Dollhouse Contest, I recognize all of the entrants this time, which means I must have finally gotten everyone added to my reading list. Some of the houses look like they're done or getting close, so I'd better get moving.

The thing I've been working on, but can't loudly announce until it launches was up for approval this week, and after 2 1/2 days of nervously waiting working on the dollhouse, I received an email saying that it was approved...Of course this weekend is Easter and I can't compete with that, so I decided to hold off until sometime next week (excited that it got approved, now I've got to do some real planning). Here's hoping that I can finally have some useful purpose for my illustration work, again.

Now back to the dollhouse;

Repainted the door/windows on Monday. The insides were their original pink, the outside was a splotchy awful black, but now both sides have a muted gold base coat, better suited for a Steampunk house.

I tried gluing in the basement ceiling, even used these scary clamps, but they couldn't reach all of the warped spots and I think I took them off to soon anyway. It's not going to fall down again, but it looks a little sketchy, so I might try this again. The floor isn't getting any glue until I'm 100% done with this room though.


I actually had to go and look up when I last mentioned the kitchen counter (February). It was just a paper template then, but now it's almost done;

This why I had to make my own tiny gears

The house is pretty compact and while I wanted the kitchen and living room to be on the same floor, I had to come up with a way for everything to magically fit. I remembered watching some room make over show on HGTV, they fit a dining area into a tight space by combining it with the counter. Up against the wall for a counter, rotated out into the room for a table. Well I have even less space to work with, so the table, "When not in use" (like people really live here, I'm a dork :P ), overlaps and becomes part of the counter top.  (above photo)

When the tiny residents need a place to eat, they just turn a crank on the side of he counter, and then the gear/pulley system will rotate the glass mosaic slab out 90 degrees into the room. (no the gears don't actually turn, but I'm pretty sure this would work if they could) 

The top part isn't completely attached yet which is why I'm holding it up in the photo. The counter can actually support the table section on it's own though. It's hollow and made out of light wood scraps and used to fall over if the table wasn't sitting on top of it, but after adding a wider base, and some rocks, it stays in place.

Wasn't kidding about those rocks.

Now I just need to make some bar stools.

I'm going to try using these plastic bottle caps

And on top of all of this, I managed to start and complete a large portion of the top floor observatory. 

I have this half sun pin that I wanted to incorporate into the interior design of this room, but after making a wall template, I realized that it was just too big and heavy for such a small space. So I drew up a small paper version, and with a few coats of acrylic medium, it will be a neat sculptural element for the room.

See that little arch that I penciled in between the sun and the doorway?

Well, after some thought, I decided to make it bigger.

And made a Popsicle stick floor.

And built a small door before turning in for the night on Tuesday.

I wish I could be this ambitious with the dollhouse longer, but with Easter comes cleaning up for a family party, and my minis have to be packed up so the little kids can't get to them. It's not a pleasant process, most of it was shoved into a spare room, not sure where I'm putting this house yet. The only plus was that I had to go through a few boxes of things and ended up pulling out some stuff I might end up using later for this project. 

Lamps and candlestick holders were on ebay, alligator is from a church rummage sale, mouse and doorknob were salvaged from the Van Buren,  mouse trap came from a co-op in North Tonawanda, found the metal seashell somewhere, the metal people moved here from a gift shop in either Salem or Boston (I want to say Salem), and the unpainted wooden books were a gift from Neen.

Not saying that all of this will end up in the house, but it does look like the kind of stuff that you would find inside. And now I know where everything is.

I think it's safe to say, I'm back on track with this project.

---

Just a quick note; Based on some of the comments I've read, I'm guessing that the copyright notice/privacy policy on my blog has spooked some people. The notice is just to clarify some things and to let you about third party stuff. I know this is a blog and that the internet is for sharing ideas. If you actually read the notice (link in the sidebar) you'll see that you can re-post some of my blog stuff, most of it if you ask first.
Also, anyone involved with Undersized Urbanite, you're welcome to re-post things related to the challenge, just link back, no need to ask.

Thank you, and Happy Easter