I'm building my dream home!!

I am so excited to announce that I am finally building my dream home.  It has 7 rooms (including a foyer!!) is three stories high and has a wrap around porch!!  Now this house won't be built over night, so you will have to wait a while to see pictures.. The least I can do is share an artist rendering.

Cute right?

First, you need to know that my finished home will look nothing like this.  Mine will be a modern Victorian... not a "granny Victorian".  If I saw the pictured home in real life, I would want to "flip" it.  But that's why it is nice to build a home from scratch, rather than buy an existing home.  Brady and I know that all too well. 

EEEEEK!

I inherited this home from Brady's late Grandmother, Darlene.  OK, so maybe the house is only 1-10th the size of a real house.   That doesn't mean I can't be just as excited as if I were to ACTUALLY be building my dream home.  And let's face it, I would kill to have a really awesome modernized Victorian.  OK, back on track.. A while back I mentioned to my mother-in-law, Kari, that I was digging the new trend that was happening in the home blogosphere, building and finishing doll houses just as you would your dream home..

..and she happened to mention that her Mother, Darlene, was a doll house collector as well.  So exciting!  Darlene used to build and decorate dollhouses a long long time ago.  Unfortunately, she allowed her crazzzzy grandchildren (Brady and Mandy, ahem) to play with them and they did not survive long enough for me to check out her handy work.  *These dollhouses are not for children*..but I guess if ya really love your grand kids, which she obviously did, you will allow them to play with your "toys".  Later in life, Darlene ordered this dollhouse and planned to get back into her hobby.  Unfortunately, she never got around to finishing this project.  I just hope that the way I finish this house would make her proud and that she would approve of the houses fate at my hands!  Besides, it would have been way too much for Darlene and I to get together and geek out on this hobby.

The construction alone ought to get me through the winter and then some.  With about 10 hours of work, all I have accomplished is assembling the windows and about half the trim for the exterior.  With the directions clearly being for experienced doll house builders, this might be more of a project than I had originally imagined.  It truly is like building a real house.  You have to sand, paint and assemble each and every piece down to the last rafter in the attic.  You even have to shingle and side the house.  Brady can't quite figure out why I would want to shingle a doll house, piece by piece, yet I HATE putting siding on our house.  This would be a better project to get into once our REAL house is complete, but I just don't care.  Brady can put siding on our house while I side the doll house...let's see who finishes first. :)