Doll House Furniture And Kids Dolls
The piece of dollhouse furniture you choose for your doll's house will depend on the period of the house, the space available in the rooms, your own taste and ability. Some research into period dollhouse furniture, in reference books, stately homes or antique shops can be very helpful, both for finding designs typical of the period and for choosing pieces for each room.
As with building and decorating, tastes in dollhouse furniture have changed considerably through the centuries as a result of fashion, need, and increasing prosperity. Medieval trestles, benches, and straw-mattressed box beds gave way to Tudor chairs, tables and buffets with carved bulbous legs, and massive curtained four-poster beds.
The tools recommended for making dollhouse furniture are a razor-toothed saw, a fretsaw with a fine blade for cutting curved pieces, a craft knife with a supply of new blades, a try-square for marking accurate angles, a mitre block for cutting angles, a white wood glue and a fine grade abrasive paper such as flour paper.
You can make dollhouse furniture of almost any wood if it can be planed to a suitable thickness and the grain is reasonably small. Obeche wood which can be bought in sheets in a variety of thicknesses from art and craft shops is excellent. It's light even though it's a hardwood and is easily cut with a craft knife or a fine-bladed saw. Obeche can be painted or stained to imitate almost any wood using the appropriate wood stain. Balsa wood is not recommended for dollhouse furniture because it is too flimsy and crumbly. A good selection of wood stains is available from DIY shops, together with matt and gloss polyurethane varnishes. If you intend to varnish your furniture, avoid a too-glossy finish by diluting the varnish with a little white spirit. For painting furniture try the small tins of Humbrol enamel paints using a coat of gloss over an undercoat of matt. The undercoat should be allowed to dry thoroughly and sanded before the top coat is applied. Alternatively, poster paint or gouache can be used but will need a coat of varnish for protection. We do not recommend household gloss paints as these are too dense for painting such small pieces. We prefer the subtle effect of polished wood so we generally finish wooden furniture with a coat of amateur French polish and several coats of good was polish. The following list of tools and products are those commonly used and recommended. The first-time dollhouse furniture builder might find it helpful to know which products to buy when faced with a variety of similar brands in the DIY or art and craft shop. Good luck with your dollhouse furniture. It will provide a lifetime of enjoyment.
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