Garden District Front doors

 Hello!

The Cricut Maker 3 arrived!!!  I have set it up but not gotten much further and the knife blade won't calibrate right so they are sending a new one. I am drowning in work this week so that is as far as I got :(

I have been diligently working away for a couple weeks on the front door - and at this rate I will be 100 years old when this is done! At least I am making SOME effort here though right?

The St. Charles is a great base for this house BUT it will require extensive modifications to get it as accurate as I would like for it to be. I decided to start with the front door. The doors and windows all need to be modified before I can start putting the shell together.

The house came with this front door:

This will not do! It simply cannot be a house in the Garden District without a transom window on top for starters. I would also prefer a stained glass window in the door itself and the casing around the door is far too plain and just not accurate.

The front doors are often recessed and have an arched top but I am skipping those two things to save interior floor space and my sanity.

Thanks to my extremely handy hubby the door casing and the larger inner panel on the door have been removed. 

Next I spent an absurd amount of time re-learning my neglected photoshop and designing 2 stained glass panels - one for the door and one for the transom above. 

I struggled quite a bit with different methods of how to even make these. It wasn't as simple as pulling a design off the web because I am picky and hard to please LOL! I did get a lot of general ideas off the web and finally decided on a design. Initially I tried to draw them by hand but my hand was too shaky (I have a condition called essential tremors.) In the end I got a great fleur de lis outline graphic from Etsy (Venice Waves). I plopped that into photoshop and then drew in the lines and diamonds. It remains to be seen whether my lines are thick enough so there could be some re-design in my future once I try to actually make them. The address numbers were pulled from my truck load of digital scrapbooking files I have piled up over the years.
 

I may still need to fiddle with the outer edges and sizing to get it exactly right. I am waiting on an order of assorted molding pieces so I can decide if/how I will frame the "glass" pieces within the openings.

I have several ideas about how to execute the stained glass, all of which require printable transparency sheets which you would think I would have ordered while I was laboring with (and cussing at) photoshop but no. I am ready to print and have no transparency sheets. I do have some acetate packaging I have been saving (if I can find it) that I may try 1 of my ideas on but the others will have to wait. I also had not ordered any trim moldings to start playing with either - sheesh!

Hopefully I will get to the end of my workload in the next couple days and get back to my new Cricut!

Colors...

Hello!

My first step was deciding on a color scheme - not an easy task since I like ALL the colors!

I scanned through eleventy zillion images of Garden District houses on Google and waffled between I love them all and can't choose and I hate them all and none of them are right. Houses in the French Quarter are often more colorfully painted - sometimes a little too colorfully. The Garden District and Lower Garden District tend towards more refinement. Refinement is not often my specialty - just ask my brother.

Some inspiration pics:

French Quarter:

Garden District:

I can't bring myself to go quite THAT subdued so I aimed for something in the middle:

Initially my brother was impressed at my restraint. Then he says now you just have to narrow it down from those and I was like uh, I want ALL of them. So we are still playing with how THAT will all work but I am determined. The top color, the pale grayish blue, will be the body of the house, plenty of white trim to break things up and then I have a darker gray blue, a medium grayed green and a medium plum color. Not sure how those will quite play out but I need to figure it out soon!

The funniest part is that we just finished a total remodel of our real house. As I began my search for a color scheme I was looking at ALL possible options from my endless Pinterest Colors board. Finally began narrowing it down, came down to my final versions and realized - I had all but that plum color from the house remodel so apparently I really like those colors.

My Cricut Maker 3 should arrive today so I am excited (and scared) to see how I can use that for some of the things I want to do on this house.

Next up will be the front door....

And so it begins....maybe

I am finally embarking on my next dollhouse and hope to use this blog to track the progress.  Maybe someone else will find something interesting or helpful along the way!

I grew up in south Louisiana and one of the very best parts of living there were trips into the French Quarter with my mom and Grandma and then later with friends. I love everything about it but I especially love the architecture.  When I finished my last house I knew the next one would represent the gorgeous old houses I became obsessed with as a kid.

It started as an idea for a French Quarter home but the best kit I could find is the St Charles  by Majestic Mansions and it is much more reminiscent of a Garden District New Orleans home. My brother (partner in crime for most things and favorite friend on earth) has been a strong encourager. He will be offering help and advice along the way as I attempt to replicate a great home in the New Orleans Garden District! After debating about it for months with my brother the kit showed up on my doorstep!  My brother pulled the trigger for me and I was THRILLED.

While the kit is close it will require some modifications so let's hope I can pull them off!

Here are some inspiration pics:

 

 

 

I ordered the Cricut Maker 3 to help me out with all the ideas swimming in my mind - here's hoping it's all I envision it to be! It arrives tomorrow...