Seaside Beach Cottage - Introducing the Princess Anne

Craigslist is awesome.

The other day I got a wild hair and looked for dollhouses on Craigslist again. I found a Princess Anne from Real Good Toys for $40, plus it came with furniture. It had been posted a few weeks back, so I knew it'd been snapped up. I decided to go ahead and try to email about buying it, and then managed to plan all kinds of things I'd be doing to a dollhouse I didn't even know if I'd get!

The hours dragged on. And on. And on (okay, really it was only about 6 or 7 hours, but it felt like an eternity).

Just when I'd given up hope, I got an email saying it was still available! The seller and I were able to schedule pickup Friday evening, so I dashed off in the car to the ATM, where I realized that I probably needed to drive Larry's truck. I do have a 2-door Civic, after all, and the McKinley BARELY fit into it as thin as it is.

The drive back to the house and then to their place gave me too much time to think. I get nervous going to pick something up by myself because I never know what to expect. Will the people be nice? Weird? Cannibals? I always give Larry the address that I'm picking up from, but that won't do ME much good if I've already been simmering on the stove for dinner.

I needn't have worried. You know those people that you feel instantly at ease with? The super nice, could-talk-to-them-all-day people? They were the sellers! It had been a project the mom and daughter did together, and now that the daughter was in high school, she'd moved on to other interests.

This is the house back at my home. I have her sitting on Whitebrush Manor's base, just so you get an idea of how much smaller this one is (or how BIG Whitebrush Manor is).

It's almost going to be like I'm working on a quarter scale dollhouse!

This is the furniture that came with it. I think it'll be perfect for a little girl's room.

There is so much potential here! It may be silly, but I really enjoy having a house that I got from people I liked so much. Makes it a little more personal, somehow.

I was tempted to turn THIS dollhouse into Macabre Manor, just because I've seen so many haunted Orchid houses, but it's already been talking to me. I think she wants to be the Seaside Beach Cottage. The bright yellow reminds me of Mellow Yellow that we stayed in when we were in Seagrove Beach, Florida, a few years back.

People really name their Florida houses, just like we miniaturists do!

As much as I loved Mellow Yellow, I'm thinking about changing the color scheme of this house. How awesome are these colors?! Very beachy!

Instead of shingles, I may actually do a tin-style roof, and of course I have to do a white picket fence and palm trees in the front yard! Lots and lots of palm trees.

I'm planning to extend the porch and balcony around the side. I'll do away with the balcony ceiling, so it'll be open on top and covered on the bottom, very similar to this house that I found on the Greenleaf forums.

These windows came with the kit. They've already got one coat of white paint on them, so I shouldn't have to repaint them too many times. This is good since there are 9 of them, plus the 13 I have to do for Whitebrush Manor.

Two of the windows were broken, but they were clean breaks so I've already got them repaired and drying. Easy, peasy.

Next up was trying to figure out a place to store this one while I'm working on Whitebrush Manor. I can't very well leave her on the base, since Whitebrush's walls should be going up within the week. I started eyeing my antique drafting table. That's a good bit of space just going to waste at the moment since I haven't been drawing much.

A perfect fit! It's nice to be able to stand and work on it if I need a break from hunching over the floor working on Whitebrush (and don't worry... Penny's bed has been moved back to her lookout spot by the window).

First up was sanding the interior. It had some primer that needed to be smoothed out a bit. I really wasn't thinking though... I should've done this outside. I have a fine layer of dust over everything in my craft room!

When I was sanding, I kept hearing a clunking noise. I finally figured out that one of the walls wasn't glued all the way down at the base, so I squished (technical term, try to keep up) some wood glue in the crevice with a toothpick and my finger.

I feel very fortunate... this was the only part of the house that needed repair. The seller and her daughter did a good job of putting everything together. And it's sturdy!! It's so nice being able to work on it and not have to be as careful as I do with Whitebrush's 1/8" thin walls.

Taped and ready to go!

This is the progress I made on Saturday afternoon. I've removed most of the porch and the railing. I need to figure out how to get the balcony floor off without breaking the MDF of the wall though. It doesn't want to come off as easily as everything else did.

By that evening I managed to get most of the tower sanded. It just takes a while since I have to do each clapboard separately so I don't sand off the milled siding.

Progress may be slow since now I'm working on TWO houses, but I'm feeling pretty good about what's been done so far, and so happy I got such a wonderful deal from some great people!