A Sister house, the Greenleaf Buttercup

I recently finished building a Greenleaf Buttercup dollhouse for a special family, with the colors chosen by the new owner, Linsey. This house will be in the same bedroom as the pink Dura Craft Ashley dollhouse I built about a year ago for her half sister Jenise. 

Linsey has a different personality then Jenise so she chose more fun bright colors for her house. She also chose purple for the front door color. I gave both of the girls these houses bare so they could add their own decorations and furniture, etc. I managed to get this done just before Christmas, so I hope they're enjoying them both!

 

 

I also uploaded a quick video of the completed house on my YouTube Channel Mini-Shack, with more detailed interior and exterior photos. As with almost all my videos, there are clips of the building process at the end of the video. Here is the video on YouTube:

 

 

Now that I have built both the Dura Craft Ashley and the Greenleaf Buttercup, I can say they are pretty much the same size and take the same amount of time. Originally the Ashley dollhouse kit came with a spiral staircase, but I chose not to use it and built a straight set of stairs instead. So when I started building the Buttercup and realized it doesn't come with any stairs at all, I decided to use the spare set from the Ashley! So in case anyone has noticed - YES, the Ashley spiral staircase is installed in the Buttercup. 

Since the Buttercup is done now, I started working on my new Cape Cod Skilcraft house. It was my Christmas present to myself, and even though I have so many other exciting projects to choose from I couldn't wait to open the box and get it started. It's not a large house, so I don't anticipate taking too long to complete it. I really wanted cedar shake siding to make it as authentic as possible, but was dreading the task of applying the shingles by hand. So I went to one of my favorite dollhouse websites miniatures.com and did a quick search. I was delighted to find exactly what I was looking for: a sheet of pre-molded shake siding. I painted a few layers of different tones of grey, did some rubbing, and the weathered look came out perfect. I'm excited to get the rest of the house together, as I'm doing a little bit of kit bashing as well. More on that later!

Thanks for visiting :-)

~ Mini-Shack

The Ashley Dollhouse Video

Pleased to present the short little video for the Ashley Dollhouse. The video includes the construction process as well.

This was built for a sweet little 6 year old girl named Jenise. I asked her if she wanted me to make her a dollhouse and she said YES! Then I asked her what color she would like it and she said PINK PINK PINK. I built this in about 2 months, just working on it a few nights a week and weekends. Enjoy!

 

Thank you for visiting!

~ Mini-Shack

A cute little project, The Dura Craft Ashley

I just finished building a Dura Craft Ashley dollhouse for a sweet little 6 year old girl for Christmas. This is the first house I've ever built that was meant for a child to actually play with, so I did a few things different. I reinforced the floors and walls as I went along, I sealed the front door shut and I did not use the spiral staircase that comes with the kit. I think it would have been too fragile and may have broken easily. Instead of the spiral staircase I made my own out of mini Jenga blocks. I intentionally angled the staircase the way I did, so that she would have more living room space to play with.

I usually furnish and detail my houses as well, but she'll be receiving this empty so all I did was add some cute little curtains, and added flower boxes to the front dormer windows. I really had to stop myself, I wanted to keep adding more and more details, out of habit. She'll have plastic "play" furniture for the dollhouse, as she's still a little too young. The house has already been picked up and no longer in my workshop, so I can only hope now that she has a magical Christmas and gets many years of enjoyment out of the little Ashley.

I will make a video of the documented build step by step, including making the Jenga staircase. It's not a very large house, and it's not a complicated one either. I would consider it a quick build, except you have to cut all your own trim with this kit so that's pretty time consuming...and there's a lot of trim required to make it look decent. They do provide the trim for you, which is great. I used that, plus some extra trim that I picked up at Lowes. 

Also, as I do with all my houses, there is a large decorative embellishment on the front of the house and also on the side of the house. I put her name on the front of the house as well, just to make her feel extra special.

Here's a few photos:

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

Dura Craft Ashley Dollhouse

 

Keep an eye out for the detailed video. Thank you for viewing and Happy Holidays!!

~ Mini-Shack