Preparing dollhouse floors

 

I cut my (Mayberry Street Miniatures) floor sheet for my farm cottage to size. I gave it a stain and went over it with an electric sander once it was dry. You really want to give stain a couple days to dry. You will get a nicer effect if you want to sand it.

Then I had to fold over every individual plank seam and sand then brush it clean. A big thank you to my friend @aprilsminiworld (Instagram) for showing me this handy sander. It has a cushy handle and the sand paper attaches by way of Velcro. Perfect for fine detail sanding.

 

My boyfriend owns an auto shop so I swung by and snagged a buffing cloth to rub the floor down. It worked great and took out any extra loose wood fibers and gave the stain a nice smooth finish. I didn't want to sand it after it was installed because the dust would get down in the seams.

I'm trying some new glue today because whenever I use yellow wood glue I get small lesions on my face. The boyfriend thinks they are chemical burns from something that's in the yellow glue. I got this DAP Wellwood glue from miniatures.com and it seemed to do the trick and didn't give me a reaction! It goes on clear and you have about 2 minutes to reposition and then it cures in 30 minutes. It does have an odor so you want to be sure you have ventilation. 

For Christmas my boyfriend surprised me with this really cool carbon air filtering system that I now turn on whenever I work with chemicals. It's very quiet and keeps the air in my studio clean. It can be hooked up to a covered laser printer or 3D printer also.

Next applied a satin varnish, sanded and reapplied. I will add a little wear and tear in the main foot traffic areas. So my floor is in, now I will put the ceiling on and start the second story!