Project houses for DIY finishing
Some visitors to my website or exhibition stands love my house designs but prefer to decorate and finish their dolls houses themselves. To meet this need, I can supply my houses as DIY project houses1. These come assembled with the stairs, halls and landings fitted out and decorated (otherwise some of these are impossible to do once the house is assembled) but are otherwise bare plywood. You can choose how much of a project you want from the following:
- Bare plywood rooms and bare plywood outside (just the stairs, halls and landings come fitted out and decorated).
- Bare plywood rooms but the outside decorated with the same options as for fully finished house exteriors. This means that your DIY Project House looks good in your home even if the inside is still a 1/12th scale building site!
- Commission me to decorate selected additional rooms: for example complex panelled ones which many DIY enthusiasts lack the confidence to tackle themselves.
Project houses come completely assembled in bare birch plywood with external mouldings and details in place. Due to the complexity of the designs, I do not supply houses flat packed.
Hallways and landings are decorated with your choice of colours chosen from the Farrow & Ball colour card, with stairs assembled and decorated and fitted with painted newel posts, spindles and stain-varnished banister rails.
DIY Project house supplied with finished, decorated, landing but remainder
left as bare plywood. Note lift-up floorboard temporarily secured with
masking tape. The floorboard can be taken up to conceal wires for lights.
DIY Project house chimney breast apertures are cut to fit
supplied plaster fireplaces.
DIY Project houses are supplied with unpainted skirting, coving and plaster
fireplaces
Slots are routed into the floors under lift-up floorboards to conceal wires to ceiling lights underneath. In rooms that have arches, these are left bare without fitted shelves or cupboards. Holes are drilled inside the chimney breasts to make wiring easy. No wiring or fused distribution strips are provided. Although floor boards are scored in all the non-basement rooms, there are no flagstones laid in the basements or on street pavements. In the picture above note the decorated landing at the rear and the scored floorboards and the lift-up floor board secured with masking tape.
The price includes the following loose parts (all unpainted):
- External door(s), internal six panel and braced doors including architraves. Doors leading from hallways and landings are painted and fitted but the architraves left off inside the room left for DIY decoration.
- All windows including acetate and architraves. These are supplied fitted and painted if outside decoration is commissioned.
- Sufficient lengths of skirting for you to cut & fit to all the ground, first and second floor rooms.
- Coving strips for you to cut & fit to the ground and first floor rooms.
- Terracotta chimney pots.
- Oven door and external railings (where appropriate).
- Plaster fireplaces (I cut the chimney breasts so that the openings in the fireplaces match) from Dovetails Miniatures.
DIY Project houses are not supplied with external metalwork (gratings, balcolny railings or other railings).
Decorated rooms
The rooms in the picture above were part of a house supplied fully finished on the outside but with only 8 of the 11 rooms left in bare plywood because the customer commissioned me to panel and decorate some of the reception rooms.
If you want me to decorate some of the rooms for you please call me and I will prepare a fixed price quotation based upon your exact requirements.
Prices
Two prices are shown on the Prices page for each project house:
- bare plywood exterior and only the stairs, halls and landings decorated inside.
- decorated exterior (painted finish) and only the stairs, halls and landings decorated inside.
Price increments apply for exterior ashlar masonry, individually laid tiles/slates, brickwork and other options.
If you would like more information about DIY Project Houses please call or email me.