The Building

Laying the Floor Boards

The floor boards were cut from 1/16" thick stock 3" wide and 24'' long. The floors in the full size house are made from different kinds of wood. Oak was used in the living rooms and first floor hall, Douglas fir in the kitchen, birds eye maple in the dining room and library and random width white pine in the second floor rooms. The miniature flooring was cut from the same kinds of wood with the exception of the oak floors in the matching living rooms. Since we could not find oak with a fine enough grain to be in scale, a very fine grain beech wood was substituted.

The cut floor boards were then stained with dilute solution of artist transparent water color paint rather than acrylic paint. Raw sienna or yellow ochre was used for a yellow pigment, burnt Sienna was used for a red pigment, raw unber, burnt umber and Van Dyke brown for a brownish pigments and finally lamp black.

The floor boards were then glued into place using ordinary Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue in the same patterns they are laid in the full size house. When the floors were completely laid and stained, they were coated with Deft Clear Wood Finish to bring out and fix the color of the stain.

Click on photograph to enlarge

This is the floor in one of the living rooms. Because the floor is very old, there are places where the boards do not fit exactly and we assembled the miniature floors to reflect those irregularities.
The kitchen floor is Douglas fir. The reddish highlights were stained to match the true color of the original in which some boards are quite a lot darker than others.
The pattern in the birds eye maple floor in the dining room extends into the small hall, the library and the downstairs bathroom, indicating that at one time the four areas had been one huge "great room", most probably serving as the kitchen as well because the chimney in that section of the house is enormous. The vent in the floor (upper left corner) provides hot air heat that raises naturally. It gives very even heat with no drafts as nothing is forced and, because there is no fan, the system operates very quietly. Needless to say, there is no heat in the dollhouse.
The first floor hall floors are oak, like the living rooms, but without any pattern.
The second storey has only random width pine floors. To simulate the floors in the full size house, the knot holes were painted on the boards before they were put in place. The tiny "nail holes" were added once the floors were glued down. However, after the entire floor was complete and the finishing coat was allowed to dry, the floors did not look natural. After studying the full size floor we realized that the dollhouse floors looked too pristine. Real old pine floors have years of collected dirt between the floor boards. To imitate dirt, we took saw dust, stained it dark brown, and carefully filled the cracks. That was the trick! The floors then looked just like the originals.
Intricate heating grates can be found in the floors and one in a low kitchen wall near the floor. In the real house they are made out of metal but in the miniature they are constructed from wood. The heating system in the real house is hot air but not forced hot air. Hot air raises naturally, so there is no need to have blowers in the system. As a result, the heat causes no drafts, is very even and it is almost silent. There is only one grate in the second floor and that is in the bath room where the door will be kept closed for a long while while bathing. In the colder months, you must keep your bedroom door slightly ajar when you sleep or you may freeze. It takes only twenty minutes or so on very cold nights for a bedrooms to get uncomfort- ably cold if the door remains tightly shut. Aside from this one feature, it is the most efficient heating system we have ever had. The scares in the floorboards are placed in the same positions they can be found in the full size house.
Half way down the main hallway on the first floor, this large wooden grate can be seen in the floor. It is the heat return grate. It is so fine that you could easily break if you stepped on it. Therefore, in the real house, it is flanked by a small table with a basket of flowers on it towards the foot of the stairs and a small foot stool on the end nearer the hall closet. These two items keep people away from the danger of falling through and sliding down to the huge furnace in the basement. Needless to say, this can not happen in the dollhouse.

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