Kid Kraft Modern Luxury Dollhouse

 

Got another project.

Picture from Internet 

This is the Modern Luxury dollhouse by Kid Kraft.  

Mine looks like this.

  That silver thing is what's left of the elevator.

It's got stickers and scribbles.

 

Side views for the sake of completion.

The back is blank except for an unhelpful manufacturer sticker.

Third floor has a serious sag issue and a stain.  

This isn't an issue for my plans., since it's not mold or mildew.

Second floor has a sag issue beside the elevator shaft.

On the work table for cleaning.

Yes, most of the third floor is gone now.

Contact paper for cinderblock walls.

Elevator shaft covered with strong cardboard.

Push pins and duct tape solve the sag problem. 

A bit of the ugly "linoleum" floor is visible.

And I forgot my camera existed.

One side of the first floor is papered with assorted scraps.

I left the pink side as it was.

My "bleachers" went on top.

It solved more of my storage issues than I expected. 

The classroom's bin and the playroom shelf are now free.

I need a few more desks for my classroom.

And some educational wall decor.

First floor is now a playroom.

Two playrooms if you wanna get technical.

All told, not bad for trash picking and an afternoon's work.

Clean up might take longer than the actual project did!

F*R*I*E*N*D*S: The Next Generation

 This one's been rattling around in my brain for quite a while.  I will thank anyone who disapproves of sequels/spinoffs/reboots to just go sit over there and hush.  I already heard everything you're gonna complain about.  

I do not own any copyrights to the characters, the dolls portraying the characters, etc, etc.... this is just for fun.  Please do not sue me if you are one of the copyright holders.  Also, please have a passing knowledge of the show before reading... I don't wanna have to do a giant info dump!

The cast

Tris (Erika Bing), Polly (Tedra Hannigan), Ben (Ben Geller)

Finnick (Jack Bing), PJ (Emma Geller-Green)

Jack: Meat's on the grill.  I hope Ben gets here soon.

Emma: He left the lawyer's office a while ago.  He should be here any minute. 

Ben (joining them): Guess what?  I inherited a house from my grandmother.  No idea what kind of shape it's in or even how big it is, but it's actual real estate.  I have to meet with the executor of the estate Tuesday for the keys.

Jack:  Is it in the city?  You can rent it to me and Erika.  The commute is killing us. Not to mention still living with the parents.  They're great, but they're still parents. 

   

Ben: Has Emma told you her news yet?  She claims she's going to wait until it's official, but we all know that's not going to happen.  Dad will blab if she doesn't.

Emma: Thanks a lot, big mouth.  I don't want everyone getting excited for me until -- 

Ben: Ross Jr over here is going to be a doctor of paleontology.  

Emma (glaring at Ben):  I submitted my dissertation and I have not heard anything yet.  

Tedra: We've known that since we were kids.  Broke Rachel's heart when you didn't get into fashion.

Emma:  I just felt a calling to follow in Dad's footsteps.  Mom should understand that, with her history. At least I didn't climb out a church window and run to the Village in a wedding gown.

Erika: I think she does.  She's just... dramatic.  

****

Tuesday

Executor: Nice to meet you Mr. Geller. I have all the information on the house including a floor plan.   

Ben (looking at the floor plan):  This place is huge. 

Executor: You stand to make quite a bit of money if you sell. If you were to rent, I'd recommend dividing it into apartments.  Most people who can afford a home this size just buy one. 

Ben: I've got a few potential housemates in mind.  

****

Also Tuesday 

Mystery Man: Oh, I got some DNA matches.  Tribbiani?    

Did You Miss Me?

 I went to a wedding in Kansas.  Visited family and did the tourist thing on the way to and from.

I'm 60 years old now.

Got a Superhero Girls bus from Goodwill but the biggest keeper was this:

(Picture from internet.)  

The bus's driver can detach from the bus and zoom off after bad guys!  

Not sure what or where this will be.  Expect a future post or series on this project.

 

This is the sticker on the back.  There's also a serial number, but Google keeps finding me not-quite-this dollhouses.  Y'all know how it bugs me when I can't track down the origins.

The cast for my sequel to FRIENDS.  Can you guess who they are?

My second ily doll.  This one's a Hocus Pocus fangirl.  Loves the Sanderson sisters, so I'm calling her Sandy.  Did I mention in my post about Sally that the side-of-the-box art makes for good bookmarks?  Sandy's got some wild hair, but no worse than Willa or Belltrix.   

Please see the post titled "ily Forever" for the detailed review of Sally.  

Camper and Dollhouse Update

 I've not done much recently with the dolls.  I am still toying with a couple of story telling ideas, but the current political climate is playing hell with my psyche.  I think my muse may have run for the hills.  I am working around my stories, but not on my stories, if you can understand that.

You'll remember this camper. Those white sides, with indentations for stickers, bothered me.  So bland.

Peel and stick wallpaper to the rescue.

I've fallen in love with the Masterpieces from Zuru Mini Brands.  I'm not even sharing with the dolls!  This is my art gallery on the side of a bookshelf.  I don't care for the silly versions (like Mona Lisa in baseball gear) and I end up with doubles, like with any blind bag.

I have a plethora of easels and magnifying glasses.

And balls.  So many balls.

I'd like to get the dollhouse off the floor.  They could have a basement garage.

Ideally, I could set this up in the center of my Doll Room... it would be fun to have 360 degrees of play.  But I still haven't inherited a two bedroom house from long-lost Uncle Pennybags.

Anybody got a 62 inch long coffee table and a teleportation machine?

Horsies!

 I found another good example of how using things meant for 18 inch dolls sometimes works better than using the things meant for my dolls' actual size (12 inch/Barbie/1:6).  I've mentioned this before, most recently in my review of the Hogwarts Express playset. 

Image from Internet.

According to this and my clumsy math, a regular Barbie-scale horse is technically a pony. 

The average (using measurements on Angus and Khan) height of a Barbie horse, to scale, is only 12 hands.  I don't take issue with my dolls having ponies instead of horses.  It's just an interesting point.

Both Angus (hairy feet) and Khan (funny tail) are based on real horse breeds.  Angus should be 17 to 19 hands.  Gage should have of trouble looking over his spine! Khan is smaller, about 14 hands, but his spine still should be chest high on Gage.  Remember, I'm using my own math skills here, so estimates and bad calculation are both possible.

Bullet: thanks for giving up your spot for me.

Khan: Jeanie made me.

Like Khan before him, Bullet jumped into my hands at a local flea market.  He fit all my criteria for a doll horse: reasonably realistic eyes and a dynamic pose. He is a horse, not a pony, on my scale.  Roughly fifteen hands.

Bullet was heftier even before I noticed his long legs.  Turns out, he is a Our Generation horse.  Our Generation are 18 inch dolls similar to American Girl dolls. Thus this blog post.

Some of you may remember I had a few more horses.  All but Angus went in the post-soap-opera purge, for various reasons.  One of them wasn't walking or anything, just standing there, and originally had human looking eyes that I tried to fix.  Most of them were too small to be anything but babies.

When I found Khan a few weeks  ago, he had some kind of wiggly stirrup thing that was meant for the doll to (I assume) stand while riding.  It stuck out of his belly and was purple to match his saddle and bridle.  I sawed most of it off and used black nail polish to hide the rest.

Bullet needed a scrubbing and a brushing.  My friend suggested naming him Silver Bullet.  Once cleaned up, he isn't as silver as we thought, so he's just Bullet.  

Angus fits nicely in the horse trailer.

Khan also fits nicely in the horse trailer.  He is skinny enough to share the space, but neither of his buddies are!  

Bullet looks like he can step over with just a little effort.  While we're at it, let's try on the tack! 

 Khan's saddle and bridle almost fit Bullet.

Pink set does not even come close.

Pink saddle number two almost fits.

 

Angus's saddle has been repaired with elastic so I didn't even try to wiggle it over Bullet's big ole hips.  Ignore the water.  He forgot to stand on his head for proper drainage after his bath.

Not sure where this came from, but it will fit with a bit of effort.  Most of my barn stuff came from thrift store assortment bags and I think this was in one of them.  

Too small.

Khan can wear it.  Almost.

Angus is not amused. 

 

Angus can share this one with Bullet.  Khan prefers his purple halter with the gold reins. 

My other barn stuff, usually stored in either the horse trailer or the sleigh.  The lanterns and signs were Christmas tree ornaments.  The buckets were probably in the previously mentioned assortment bags.  I did get a rooster once but he had a speaker and the speaker holes looked like violence had occurred.

Everything together to be put away.  Eventually.  My excuse this time?  Gotta let Bullet stand on his head for a while and drain that bathwater.  That fashionista bag used to hold the tack... but now I have too much tack...