Door Tutorial and a Small Bit of Progress on the Swedish House

Since I have spent so much time on the American House, my little Swedish House has been quite neglected. I had the whole weekend to work on it. At the beginning of the weekend it was still just a shell, but I have done some work now to make it look much more like a little house. 

I decided to being with the bottom right hand room, which is to be the dinning room. The first thing I needed to do was to make some nice doors. I have noticed that in many neoclassical scandinavian country houses small double doors are used in the main rooms. 

Simple and low wall panelling was common too. I think this was mainly because of the habit of placing chairs against the walls. The wood panelling saved the wallpaper from scuffs. 

To make the doors I started with two thicknesses of basewood. Basewood is a type of hardwood that is similar to balsa wood in appearance, but not so soft that it is damaged easily.

I cut the basewood to the correct door shapes.

I layered it once it was cut so that the thicker piece was in the centre, and the on either side were the thinner pieces. 

Before I glued it I cut the panel pattern out of the thin pieces for the outside. 

Then I glued the three layers together. 

Once they were together I lined the inside of the panels with some moulding, and added a smaller panel of wood to the centre. 

This gave quite a realistic finish without too much trouble. 

 I then worked on the walls (because they detach from the room) and added architrave and panelling. I used a very similar technique to the doors for the wall panelling.

I did a base coat of white paint on the panelling and doors and temporarily hung the chandelier. I really like how it is shaping up, even though the walls are still raw MDF.

I will now have to finish the panelling. After that, I will have to decide on a colour scheme for the walls, be it wall paper or trompt l'oeil. Then I will have to construct a tiled stove or kakelugn, and do the floors!