Building from scratch

I've built 3 dollhouses from kits. It was a great way to start and learn. By the third one I felt my work was getting pretty good:

The 3 first kit houses have been given away. I made a list of what would be the perfect miniature project:

-Front opening
-Floor plan must be realistic
-Rooms must be large enough to hold my collection

After a long search for a new kit I realised it might be easier to build one from scratch. I've always loved the charm of old English manor houses. Since my only limit was my imagination I got to work on several house plans. One day I saw a Stephen King mini-series about a haunted house that was absolutely perfect. I started to work on plans and making cardboard models...2 years later, I was finally happy with the plans and ready start work on my dream miniature house:

And here is the final cardboard model built to scale.

It's amazing how a simple little dollhouse wound up measuring 39 inches deep by 100 inches wide and 56 inches high.  I wasen't sure I could tackle such a big project, but I finally decided to go for it. I have a bit of an artistic side, so I made detailed plans, drawings and figured out exactly what I wanted the rooms to look like.

Then, I spent about a week drawing out how the pieces could fit on each sheet of Mdf. I listed each piece and their measurements and had the hardware store cut the 87 pieces out of 6 sheets of Mdf. When I got home and taped the pieces together, the result was even more daunting then the cardboard model:

It's big, but it's exactly what I had envisionned. And then the fun began...