Mountfield Dollhouse Garage

I think I need a Dollhouse Garage! Why? Because I bought a clearance kit in Atlanta while visiting the Atlanta Miniature Show and I have two cars and they need a home anyway. I was so excited I started sketching on the way back home. The kit had no instructions and I decided to wing it. I tried to complement the design of the house.

Some of these details changed

I began by tracing the some of the pieces onto foam board. I decided to use the original two side pieces and double the front piece with the working garage door to make a two car garage.

I bought some MDF and had a co-worker to cut out the parts using the foam board as a template. I got the MDF at home depot for under $6 a board, which were large enough to use on three boards for the whole garage. This is also the board that I had cut in half as the base for my gardens.  I ordered a second garage door for the additional opening and coach lights matching the ones by the front door.

While at the Miniature Design Shop, I came across something that I have been looking for since I started my dollhouse...attic stairs that fold up, I could not believe it! I decided to use them in the loft storage area over the garage. I dry fit the MDF parts to see how everything together would look.

Ladder flipped to face the front

I have painted the walls and roof with the same latex paint color that I used on the house for the brick mortar color.

I am adding the half timber and stone to match the house and I originally planned to add the brick but I thought it might be too much against the house and I started having flash backs to the three weekends it took me to brick the house! I masked off the area that I did not want in stone with tape and used the same stone texture paint that I had used on the house. I have decided to use a face mask in the future with this spray paint even outside it is very strong and the smell gets in your clothes.

I lined all the walls side-by-side to make it easy.

While waiting for the walls to dry I cut and painted the timber and doors. Once the pieces were dry I added the timber.

I changed my mind about the insert color

Considering the brick exterior still

Then I assembled it again to see what areas would show that needed painting and later painted the interior white. I taped the garage door supports inside to check the alignment and the space with both doors in place. When I originally did my foam board mock up I did not have both doors, which I found out was indeed a problem when the loft stairs let down. The space between the supports is tight. Also the doors are very "fragile" the rollers come off very easy and the doors do not smoothly operated up. I think I read somewhere to use soap as a lubricate, still working on those issues. I cut some large wood beams and placed them in the corners to use as support in the garage for the loft floor/ceiling.

I used the stone texture on the floor.

I could not resist!

 One support is upside down...oops.

I started stenciling the roof until I started to get sleepy.

Well, that was as far as I could get in one weekend! I had to get as much done as possible before my husband came back in town from a business trip and saw the mess I made all over the house. The sketch and the foam board mock-up I cut out and taped together that Sunday afternoon/night when we returned home from Atlanta, the boards were cut midweek, everything else I did from Friday about 6:00pm until Sunday about 8:pm, until my husband made me stop to sleep.