Undersized Urbanite 2014 - My House

Undersized Urbanite officially started up again last week, but like a lot of the entrants this year-I'm off to a late start. Granted, I think I joined in a month late last time, but last time I wasn't getting the newsletter telling me the start date.

To give you some back story as to what's been going on this past week: No internet for a day + I really need to finish up The Curious Concepts Project + I got approved to do something awesome in Buffalo this week (You can see it on my FB page for now) + Still posting new things up on Etsy = October is turning into a very busy month for me. In a good way.

All that said, I am entering this year and will be diving in as soon as I can. So it's time for my first post.
I've talked about it before, this is my house for the year;

(That blue disk is a "Lazy Susan" base for the house)

Haven't touched it since it was given to me over the summer, so the first WIP post will probably be about how I scrubbed it down with dish soap and/or vinegar, and fixed the Lazy Susan so that the base isn't just sitting in the top floor.

Last year I struggled designing my house at the start because I didn't zero in on a theme right away. It turned out pretty well (Click here to see my Steapunk House), but I want to start off with a real plan this time. Fortunately, this isn't just a white house and all I have to do is decide what stays and what needs to go.

My first thought was, "Flowers. I can do a garden-themed house". There's a few problems though. 1. I didn't paint any of those flowers and I feel like no matter how many times I say that, people are going to think that is some of my work. 2. That painting is painfully out of scale and needs things, like a door. 3. Upon further thought I realized that I don't really want to make a garden house. Gardens are for yards, greenhouses, or at least a scene that's going to have actual windows. And I already decided to make a garden for another house, but I haven't really gotten to it yet-that should be a sign that I don't want to do an entire house of flowers. So why was I even thinking about designing around something I didn't even like that much? I'm a designer, and I don't have to actually like something to make it look awesome. This is a personal project though, so I'm not tied to any restrictions because, hey, I made them up here.

The other theme I can pull from this house, is birds. Or at least a birdhouse. Tough to see in the photos, but at the very top floor there is a birdhouse door/opening. I like that it's there and it would be a pain to design around if I tried to make it not a birdhouse, so something bird themed is probably a good way to go.

Thanks to some ground rules I set for myself with this whole dollhouse thing that I've been doing, here are some extra guidelines I have to follow (along with the Undersized Urbanite rules, of course);

*So that it doesn't end up looking like any other of my projects, the exterior of this house can't be the color green, a Brownstone, or a Cobblestone. Actually, I think stone/brick is out completely because I really need a ton of egg carton for the Van Buren (which I have been working on over the summer, btw)

*Steampunk, beach/summer/vacation home,  and refurbished old building have all been used and can't be main themes.

*I kind of don't want this project to just be a house. A cafe or a store maybe?

*Bright colors are a must because everything I've made after "Billy" has been darker builds and it's starting to look a little gloomy around here.

*I need to figure out a way to put in some doors/windows so that this looks like a building instead of a rectangle with a roof. I've done fake doors before, windows are going to be the challenge.

It's going to be a while before I can really get started, but I'm looking forward to it.