The Devil in the Details: Windows,Doors, and Trims.

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This is the second part of Permanent Plywood Walls. Windows, Doors, Trims! 

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Here is the door jambs and trim in the Bakery section of the DIY Barbie Grand Hotel. On this section of the door, I used plastic trims (edging for plastic windows) from the Lumberyard. Here you can see the end view of these pieces. I trim them to size with a sharp heavy scissors. You could use a knife of sorts, but I think you could slice your hand off.

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The middle piece is as purchased, the others after trimming. You can file or sand off rough edges.

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Usually I use a heavy shears, but I didn't need much trim for the one door. I wanted a lower profile on this door because the wall between the door and refrigerator was very small.

Craft wood is cheaply purchased at Big Box lumber yards. I try and use something heavier than balsa wood. I believe these are pine. Decide how wide and thick you want to use. I used 1/4"x 1/2" pieces. These need to be cut with some sort of saw. I'm working in 1:6 scale and this size ended up being perfect. I used the smaller widths for fill-in on the windows.

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Working wood in miniature scales, 1:12 (dollhouse), 1:6 (Fashion doll) or 1:3(American Girl sized) requires mostly hand tools. For doing the windows and doors in the plywood walls, I used hand tools. 

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This next section is a Repeat from last post: 

My favorite tools for DIY dioramas.

Tools:

A Band saw, jig saw or saber saw can do your curves, if you have any. 

You also can cut curves, window holes, and small trims with a saber saw (electric) or a hand coping saw. I also use a miter saw for cutting small stright edges.

Hand Tools: 

I use hobby knife sets for fine cutting, trimming, planing. These are made by multiple brands X Acto, Xacto, Gordon, Fiskars, and lots of store brands. They are often interchangeable. I have inherited tools from my dad so I have a bit of everything. 

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This was one of my dad's sets. Blades are easily replaced. Most crafters would find this a good set. The different handles are for different sized blades and thickness of blades. 

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I purchased this set in an after Christmas Sale really reasonable. 

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It has a planer, which will shave edges and it's adjustable. 

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The set also has a long serrated blade for small sawing. The handle is great for holding and accurate sawing. I have a small vise(my dad's fly-tying vise) I can clamp anywhere holds pieces still for me. You can also use clamps which are inexpensive.

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I'm not advertising, but I do use these products and rebuying them repeatedly. Not shown is wood glue, duck tape, and velcro. 

An electric drill sure helps the arthritis, but you can easily use hand drills and screw drivers to do doll crafts. I also have a battery Dremel tool for cutting plastic and drill tiny holes. It also has grinding and sanding attachments. I've burned out 4 in my 50 years of crafting. So, I really do use them for lots of things.  

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Here you can see how I had taped the window onto the original foam core walls. 

Take a look at all the tape if you look close! I'm really excited to frame these out with moldings and trim. 

See how nice everything fits into the 1/4" plywood. I put the smooth side of the plywood to the atrium, The condos can easily use wallpaper to cover up flaws. The DIY doors are left over from the cabinets I made from Barbie wardrobes here: DIY Doll Closets. 
The white windows were part of a destroyed thrift store Barbie fold out house, fairly recent. It's amazing what kids do to structures, they are either perfect or totally destroyed---nothing in between.

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This is the atrium side of Colette's interior door and window placed in the new plywood wall. The door is framed out on both sides with the wood trim. The 45 degree angles were cut on my small mitre box by hand. The little ledges on the ends of th window are the same wood, turned on the side. The arch pieces hubby cut on a band saw, because we needed 4, 2 for each window. He did this by stacking and nailing 4 pieces of wood with a pattern glued on top, then all 4 were cut at the same time---ensuring they would be the same!

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Inside: Door frame I glued the old rods(pink ends) to the wood. In the center I constructed a new door pin (hinge) holder by drilling holes in the ends of a 1/2x1/2 piece of wood, and then sanding and shaving it into a rounded shape on two sides so the door would clear the wood edge when opening. These were super glued on alcohol cleaned surfaces. It took a couple of tries to get top, middle and bottom all glued. (If not in shut-down I would have purchased in scale quarter-round for this...but it only took under an hour to construct this. 

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I had to do some sanding on the plastic to get the door to open smoothly.

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The wall on the right was still hinged to the window, so no hinges to build. I like that the windows are the same, but the doors are unique to the apartments. The door on the right has to have a piece attached at the bottom, a kick-plate all painted silver...so you won't even see it. Here I'm laying out the wood pieces. Cut all the pieces before you glue anything...!!!!

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On the arched door, I had to carefully draw the angles. Gaps can be filled in with wood putty and/or paint. You can see I used some plastic trim pieces on the white plastic windows, to finish the inside. These were also super-glued. 

I filled in a bit of wood putty on the rougher surface on this interior wall on the right. 

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Here again, you can see the actual wood hinge part in place with the trim built out around it. After cutting and fitting all trim, super glue all the pieces in place, one at a time. I count to 30 while holding pieces in place.

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inside of Lara's condo

 I painted the finished walls/trim with two coats of the pale blue gray paint I used through-out the building. I had used some acrylic shiny fabric paint as caulk on the window irregularities. The color was a perfect match, and two applications and a day waiting for drying patched up any little roughness or holes.

Atrium side of Lara's Condo

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I had to shave this upper piece on the left for the door to clear, it will hardly be noticeable after paint.

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There is no coverup for the silver rods holding the doors on. Trim placed over this will just impede the doors' movements.

I fianlly painted all the trim with two coats of white-satin enamel wall paint.  

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Here are those two interior atrium walls installed with velcro to the original structure in front 

(Tape is holding the walls while the glued velcro sets up.) I had to finally use super glue on this also. The self-stick wasn't strong enough, hot glue peeled off, finally pressure and super glue worked.

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The simple white trim works really well with the soft gray blue. I had taped (green) the refrigerator to hold the goodies inside. The door, will be painted eventually, not sure what color, yet! 

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Colette's is ready to move back in---I'm still not sure how the 'kitchen' door will be attached, I think tape for now, as I will use that hole for camera shots. 

Ready to move back in!

  Maybe Salon Jacquie will be able to open soon when the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted in Chicago. I know her email and phones have oodles of clients already scheduled for appointments. They will open with some modifications---coming soon! I know this is getting to Real????

What are you making for your dolls right now?

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