The Shell of a Grand Little House

The long weekend has finally come, and so first thing Saturday mum and I went off the to hardware shop for some materials to build the shell of the new dollhouse. 

I bought 7 sheets of MDF measuring 900mm x 1200. They range between 18mm and 2mm think. 18mm is for the base of the house, so it is nice and sturdy. The walls, ceiling and roof are 4mm.

I measured out the floor plan/interior wall positions on the base as a guide for the dimensions of the rooms.

A circular saw is the best tool for cutting the large pieces of the base and back.

It is quite dangerous though, so I had to keep my whits about me...

After cutting the pieces, I taped the shell together to see how snug the fit was. 

Taping before glueing is a good way to make sure the dimensions of the rooms are good. The layout of the house will be of a central hall (where the staircase will be fitted) with a room of equal size on each side of the hall. Upstairs will be two smaller bedrooms or a bedroom and a sitting room - I haven't decided yet.

The dimensions of the downstairs rooms (if they were real) are approximately 4.5m (15 foot) wide, 3.5m (12 foot) deep, with 10 foot ceilings. I decided this equates to a generous (but not grand) room. If it was a British house I would probably have made the ceilings higher, however, Scandinavian houses seem to have lower ceilings in general, so that is what I went with. This also makes for a more manageable size house too!

Tomorrow I will go out in search of legs for the house. I will also cut the facade, window holes, and glue the shell together.