Remodeling a Duracraft Heritage Dollhouse - part 4 The Attic

 When I built the Duracraft Heritage years ago for my then young daughter, I wallpapered the attic. In this remodel, I looked at the attic and said to myself, just how low is the ceiling in there? I forget exactly, but if you're more than 5" tall, expect to bang your head in there. So I decided to turn the space into the attic it should be.

In the picture below, you can see the small attic alcove which I had originally painted white, because there was no way I could get my hands in there to wallpaper it way back when.  I drew black lines across the space to remind myself that walling it off would be a good idea.

When we built our present real life home some 25 years ago, there were rules or covenants concerning how the homes in the neighborhood were to look. One of them was that they should all have wooden shingled roofs. Our contractor was a carpenter who liked to use tried and true traditional building methods. He advised us to put our shingles on strapping instead of plywood sheathing, because wooden shingles tend to rot more readily when nailed to plywood. When nailed to strips of wood called strapping, they can dry out after being drenched in rain or snowstorms, and be less likely to rot.

I learned that roofs that had shingles nailed to strapping have been known to last over 200 years. Unfortunately, in our century, shingles, like many other things, just ain't what they used to be, and we'd probably have to replace them after 20 years or so.

Here's an example of the underside of a roof made up of wooden shingles on strapping.  You're learning so much history, aren't you?

The vertical beams are the rafters. The horizontal boards are the strapping. The wood behind the strapping are the shingles. The strapping in my real life attic wasn't as wide as the boards shown here, and there were more of them. I can't show you a photo of my attic, because several years ago we put on a new asphalt shingled roof which was laid on plywood sheathing.

Here's a picture of the first stage of the Heritage's redone attic.

First I had to make some rafters. On corners, if I can, I prefer to use L molding instead of butting 2 pieces of stripwood together. It makes a neater, more secure look. The bottom cut can be a little tricky when on an angle like this, but after a few false cuts using leftover bits of molding I finally got a cut that worked ok.

I simulated the wooden shingles using random dabs of 2 or 3 shades of brown all over the walls.

Also, I cut a triangular piece of scrap plywood to fit in and cover the entrance to the small alcove.

I must confess, I got carried away dabbing my shingles and dabbed right across the triangular false wall, so I ended up painting that piece brown. My story is that after the plasterer finished the wall, the homeowner didn't like the glaring white and requested it be painted brown to blend in. 

Next I needed to do something about the floor.

During the original building process, here and there I used some kind of glue that would not come off. It was a real battle to wrench some things out, using a hair dryer on the glue just would not soften it enough to remove a wall, shelves, or whatever. I was left with bits of glue here and there on the floor that would not come off or sand down, so I needed to install flooring.

I decided to cut pieces of basswood and score lines to simulate the floorboards, then piece them in as best I could. The main problem was that the space was small, my hands were too big, and the lighting was lousy. So much of this attic was completed by feel, because I simply couldn't see what I was doing in there.

Once the stained floor panels were in place, I glued in the rafters. 

There were some random looking strips of wood at the edges of the floor in some places. They were there to help strengthen the connection between the sloped attic walls and the floor, but over the years, some of them pulled away from the walls. Unfortunately, they remained firmly stuck to the floor and I felt if I tried to pry them out all sorts of things might start falling apart.

In old attics, however, one may sometimes find old pieces of wood nailed to places, and you have no idea why they're there. In those conditions, it's best to leave them alone. 

I wound up adding a few more random pieces of wood to the Heritage attic because it developed a few gaps over the years, and the wood helped fill them.

Here's the completed attic. I stained Skinny Sticks to make the strapping. It reminds me of how my real life attic used to look.

The next photo shows more of the floor.

I needed to somehow work in the areas where 2 sections of basswood butted together, so they wouldn't look so glaringly obvious.

Our modern eyes are used to floorboards looking a certain way, in nice neat lines, but I've seen illustrations of cottages and even photos of original centuries old floors where the boards sometimes went everywhich way. In an attic, the builders certainly wouldn't have been very picky. "Hey, Homer, I'm runnin' outta boards here!" "Use some of them short leftovers from the pile, then."

More history.

Before the latter half of the 1800's, floorboards used to be wider than they are now. Up to one foot wide was pretty common in the 1700's and earlier. Also, wooden floors were not varnished. They were left bare, or if you wanted a fancy floor you might paint it a nice color. People also covered their floors with strips of carpeting that were laid or stitched edge to edge to form a wall to wall carpet.

It wasn't till the 20th century that varnished, polished hardwood floors started becoming more common. Even then, many floors were still being painted, then covered with a rectangular rug they called an "Art Square". In the 1920's magazines advertised that anyone could now afford the luxury of oak floors.

If you're interested in the way people decorated their homes in the Victorian era, visit my other blog, Victorian Interiors and More.

But I digress......

I used a plaster product to fill in the small gaps where the basswood pieces butted together. Next I started brushing some brown acrylic paint over the white plaster brushing away in each direction to spread the paint out over the wood, after which I'd swoop over the area with a small piece of slightly damp paper towel. I had to do that several times in each section, then I thinned the brown paint a little more, and using a slightly larger brush, I swooped some paint in other sections of the floor, finished with a couple swoops with the dampened paper towel. In the end, I would up with what looked like a dirty old wooden attic floor.

 

What to tackle next?

I confess, when I look at the main gutted section of the building it scares me. I had never built a dollhouse kit before, and the going was much slower than I expected, and Christmas was looming fast. I don't know how much of the damage in the house was due to my ineptness, trying to get it done too quickly, or the warpage of age, probably just a combination of all those things. I still have to remove the windows out of one bay, plus the door.

Maybe I'll do the bathroom in the second story of the wing addition next. I had found the addition much easier to build than the kit. I am the daughter of a carpenter, after all, and my grandfather built his own home with his own two hands. Blood will tell. My siblings and I all laugh at how all four of us felt compelled to plant gardens when we bought out own homes, even though none of us had previously had any interest in gardening at all. Mama was always a devoted gardener.