My New Dollhouse has Arrived!

My new (old) Tennyson dollhouse kit arrived this morning! My plan is to bash it into a Victorian Gothic Revival mansion with a twist. All I know for sure is that the basement will be haunted by the ghost of a young aspiring alchemist . . . and her distant relative (cousin perhaps) will be living in the upper floors of the cottage.

In previous posts I was deciding on what colors to paint and decorate this new dollhouse, but I came across this website and my whole plan went out the window. I feel myself leaning towards my darker, more mysterious side (don't we all have one?), wanting to do something completely different from what I would normally do. I'm not sure yet what this will look like, but I know that I want to do a stone exterior. Like this . . .

The Frederick Sears Cottage in Brookline, Massachusetts

The stones are Roxbury Puddingstone (I just love that!) and Brian has already jumped on board thinking he can create the look on our 3D printer. All I'll have to do is paint the stones in different colors. We'll see how it goes . . . I'm thinking it would probably be easier to cut the stones out of cereal boxes, but I gotta at least give him a chance. LOL!

Roxbury Puddingstone

The kit arrived well packaged and I was extremely relieved to find the instructions inside! Alas, building will have to wait until after my return from our cruise next week . . . I'm extremely motivated to get this build underway!

Landscaping the Manor Grounds

I'm having a jolly good time working on the landscaping for the Manor. I purchased some "stone" pavers from Etsy and laid out a walkway from the front door to the parterre garden and gazebo. Still working on the foliage for this section of the garden. I put together a patio for in front of the conservatory and really like how it turned out. At first I had some "grass" in the little square cut out, but I didn't like it, so I replaced it with gravel and placed my sundial on it. I was going to put gravel in the cut outs in front, but decided to play with little grass mounds and liked it so much I went crazy with it. I also put in a few "thyme" plants to fill in some "cracks".

I still have so much to do, but it will come as I get inspired . . .

. . . and we've been playing quite a bit with our new 3D printer. I have most of the furniture for the new dollhouse printed for the parlor. Just needs some paint!

Miniatures in 3D

Our Bambu Lab 3D printer arrived and it hasn't stopped printing since we got it on Monday. After a few tries, Brian got the sizing right for the fountain going into my parterre garden. He even added a little pigeon on top! I was also able to print another bust for the Statue Room and new posts and rails for the cupola on the manor extension.

All that's need now is some paint (with my new air brush painter) and they're ready for their debut. Oh, and I have to figure out how to add water to the fountain . . . another learning curve, yay!