This week I've put my focus into priming the dollhouse. Here's one of the facades after its first coat:

And both facades after three coats (you can also see where I'd begun priming the front and back doors in these shots - I thought about replacing them both with something new, but no. I'll continue to honor the person who lovingly built it for his/her child or grandchild):

Plus the opposing sides:

I ended up putting some wood filler into all the little nail holes and giving them another coat. They're both to get exterior and interior wallpaper but should someone decide to rehab this again down the line I'd rather them see care and detail had been taken. It's the little things sometimes.

Next, I primed the base of the dollhouse. The yellow areas are gouges I filled with wood filler and then later repainted once it had dried and been sanded down:

This was followed by the interior rooms:

I had to go back in and tackle those interior hallways with greater care so that I could avoid destroying the woodwork on the stairs:

After that I painted the top, sides, and roof:

I decided to paint the trim pieces the same color I'd selected for the window flower boxes, so I painted the upper sections of each chimney and also taped off the bottom before turning the house upside down in order to paint that area:

These are still in the process of drying.

At this stage, I've moved on to painting the other more detailed trim pieces. There are soooooo many trim pieces. I can't believe this is only one small portion as it takes a good three coats of paint on each one! It is incredibly time-consuming, but here's a sample:

They're dark, to be sure, but also look much darker on camera than they do in person. There was a time I gave some serious thought to all of the more fun and playful colors I could go with for the exterior of this dollhouse but, in the end, I decided to stay at least a little true to the original design and have therefore gone traditional. The way society is beginning to look at gender issues there's some part of me that hopes this could be handed down to a girl OR a boy without fear of play. The dollhouse staying in this particular family matters less to me than it does finding its way into the heart of a loving child. I'll entrust my daughter to make that particular call when she's ready.

For now, my current reality tells me that the process of painting all this trim is going to take quite awhile...and so I'll just keep plugging away!