Bricks from balsa wood: If you have the thinnest sheets of balsa they will cut like butter with a craft knife. Also excellent for making internal wood paneling. Just make sure you mark them up very carefully so they are all as near as poss. the same size because any slight variation shows up large in this scale and you end up with sloping walls!
2 other suggestions, both using compressed paper egg boxes:
1. Instead of balsa, which IMHO is a bit smooth for bricks, use the flat top of egg boxes (12 pack size is best) This gives a textured effect which is much more brick-like. Takes paint much better too. If you would like more info on my method with this, mail me privately.
2. Cover the whole outside of your dh with the flat bits of egg box and then cover the egg box with brick paper, Scribe the mortar lines gently with a blunt instrument, e.g. the end of a small paintbrush - this gives quite a realistic brick effect, again with a texture.
Either way you'll need a lot of egg boxes - enlist your friends, they soon get used to strange requests from their miniaturist pals!

Chris in Scotland

Making Bricks: I tried using balsa wood to make bricks. I got a wood stripper from MicroMark, to slice the balsa sheets into thinner strips. I found that as I tried to cut along the grain of the wood to make small strips, the wood grain often pulled the knife blade one way or another. Result - wavy strips of wood.
Our club did a project where we made our bricks out of cardboard. Here's the technique we followed, as best as I can recall:
Go to a Dick Blick store or other art supply store and buy acid-free matte board. As long as you're going to invest the hours of painstaking work into this thing, you'll probably want it to last a good, long time, and going acid free will reduce degradation of the cardboard over time. Paint the surface of the cardboard the color of bricks you want. Acrylic paint is fine. (Make sure you vary the color or scumble some extra color of white, black, ochre, or other colors onto some of the bricks so you don't have a cookie-cutter sameness to the bricks, because few bricks are exactly all alike.)
Once you've smeared your paint on a good wide swath of the cardboard and allowed it to thoroughly dry, cut long strips of the cardboard with a metal rule and a rotary cutter. Then, using a "Chopper" (you can set up a fixed template for the width of the bricks and cut brick after brick after brick. Next, glue your cardboard bricks to the house using QuickGrab glue. It's waterproof and the bricks stay where you put them almost instantly.
Now... before you grout the bricks, mix a diluted solution of white glue and water and paint all your bricks with this. If you don't seal the bricks and especially the sides of the cardboard bricks, the moisture from the grouting can cause the cardboard to delaminate and suddenly your nicely painted brick surface comes off in your fingers.
Grout the bricks and carefully sponge off any extra grouting. Grout a small section at a time - no more than a couple inches square so it doesn't harden and "set up" on the surface of your mini bricks.
As with any project like this, you'll surely want to try this method out on a test project - perhaps even a spare piece of plywood - to see if you like the way it works before you commit to doing all 12,000 bricks! Lots of luck!

George Held, Cedar Rapids

Bricks: This takes a bit of patience, but I think well worth the time and effort. When I wanted to make brick posts between the iron fencing around my San Franciscan, I cut very fine sandpaper into "bricks". I painted the wood I was going to apply them to the grout color. Then I began gluing them down. The nice thing is that you can wrap around the corners very easily! OR if you want some irregular bricks, simply cut. When the glue is thoroughly dry, start painting your bricks by lightly sponge painting on the paint. The colors you use depend on the color brick you'd like. I think the sandpaper gives the brick a very realistic look.

Marilyn from IL

Making Bricks. In my first house, I made the fireplace in my living room and it has bricks (the little clay ones) all inside the fireplace. But I bought the other 2 fireplaces... just cheap ones, and the finish inside the fireplace was smooth... no bricks and no room to put the clay ones. I painted the inside all black, cut brick size pieces of the black sandpaper, and glued them on the inside of the fireplaces with space for mortar to be showing (the black paint). Then dabbed black paint over the "bricks" for further soot.

In my colonial kitchen, I made the brick fireplace from basswood. I used a piece of left over plastic brick sheet to draw lines both ways between the bricks. Then I got my trusty engraving tool I bought from Micro-Mark and "engraved" the mortar all around the bricks... as well as sort of roughed up the surface of the bricks by "sweeping" the engraving tool back and forth over the wood. I painted down in between the bricks gray, then used about 3 colors to paint the brick surfaces. I'm really pleased with the look of these "bricks" and, though it took hours to do.

Rita Pierce

Sandpaper bricks: I think this makes great bricks, and it doesn't add to the weight of the house too much. I paint my sandpaper before I cut it out. Use slightly different shades (be subtle!) then, when you cut them out, they will have a less uniform aspect. Acrylic is fine for this, but watered down is best. Paint your wall the colour of the mortar you want before you apply the bricks. Use a guillotine if you can get hold of one. The job will ruin the blade, but it does make it infinitely easier to do.
I do roof tiles the same way, but smooth good quality card, not sandpaper. It takes ages but the effect is very good.

Lynne Connolly

MagicBrik/MagicSton: Years ago, I used MagicBrik on the outside of a smallish two story colonial. I love the way it turned out--and it's so simple. I did dip a sponge lightly in gray and black and tan paint to sponge on some "age". I was thrilled. Just recently I used MagicSlat on the floor or a potting shed room box that I've been working on. I think it turned out great too. Again I used a sponge to color some places of the slate. In both instances, I used the paint to color the texture before I peeled the stencil off. I contemplated many other bricking/slating mediums before choosing this one but it seemed to me that other ways were just too time consuming (and expensive). Keep in mind that I am one of those people much more interested in the inside of the dollhouse than the actual construction!

Magic Brik & Magic Stone, Block, Etc: I have used both the brick and stone products. The entire outside of my very large dollhouse is covered with the brick and I used the stone for the foundation and the inside of the basement walls. If you go over to my site http://fayzerplace.homestead.com/ and follow the link to "My Minis" and 'Dollhouse' -- for a good close-up of the brick, look at the "yards" pictures and you can see clearly what it looks like. For the stone, go to the "basement" pictures. I recommend it. We have used it for smaller projects also for chimneys, etc-- it comes in 1" and 1/2" scale.

Fay in St. Louis

"MagicBrik": I have made a foundation and chimney using the "MagicBrik". It works very well. Here are a couple of things to remember if you use this method:
1) Paint the color of your grouting on the house first and make sure to daub this color with some variations of color (black, white, other shades of grey, perhaps a bit of green on the lower, mossiest side of the house), because the mortar is rarely a consistent color throughout all of the sides of the house.
2) Use a T-square to mark reference lines on your house to help you keep things straight as you work.
3) On the corners, make sure you line the brick mold up so that you have a half-brick (end) pattern matching up with a full brick on the corresponding corner.
4) If your house dimensions aren't exactly right, you'll find you have fractional lengths of brick at the corner which is a bit tricky to deal with.
5) When you peel the template off, be very careful about the bricks - you can easily misshape them or damage them.
(Suggestion - do the project in sections rather than a huge chunk at a time.)

George Held, Cedar Rapids

Weathering Brass: You can use Patina-It Weathering Compound made by A-West, Box 1144, Woodstock, GA 30188 to weather a brass wind vane. This makes the brass turn blue like it would after years outside. Alan Hamer, who uses this material, actually leaves the vanes outside in the weather for a couple of weeks after applying the Patina-It.

Pam & Pete Boorum

Weathering Brass: If you want your brass green, I can attest from first hand experience working on a "tall ship" with WAY too much brass, salt water does a fine job of turning it green (rinse the brine off though before it dries or you will have salt spots that are more like not so mini salt candle drippings). Hand oil makes it tarnish quickly (like for example 50 people up and down the stairs holding the rail for 2 hours). Just make sure your brass isn't coated with the anti tarnish stuff as that makes a mess once it starts to wear away.

Carolyn

Weathering Brass: Carrs Modelling Products in the UK do various chemicals for weathering and blackening different metals, or they did a few years ago anyway.
They also do different colour weathering powders and other miscellaneous modelling products. They are intended for model railways but could be useful for dolls houses. They don't have a web site and I don't know if you can get them in other countries but their contact details for anyone interested are here: http://www.emgs.org/TraderInfo/trader_carrs.html

Colin Bird

Paint: what to use and why: I have switched from using hobby paint to using house paint. Results are much, much finer.
Hobby paint is rubbery when dry, not sandable to any degree. When used on raw wood, it simply messes it up. Even thinned it's rough and poor. I use standard good quality house paint - acrylic. I buy a quart of white exterior grade semi-gloss. Put it in screw top jars for storage. Tint it with your hobby paints and when using, thin it slightly with water. I love this paint!!!! When dry, sand lightly and add another coat. After it's totally dry (next day) sand again using brown paper bag. Result is a soft gloss that feels and looks silky and fine. Even works on cardboard clapboard. For furniture it's excellent.
Walls and trim and everything between.
Remember to thin it (miniaturize it) so it won't build up in corners.
Another tip about staining. Get staining pens, found in furniture refinishing department of hardware stores... no mess, no fuss, wide range of colors and no drips. . . this is STAIN! It's just in a pen for touching up real furniture, but works GREAT for minis. I favor golden oak and light maple. You can test the pen at the store if you like. Great product! Neat, messless and smells nice.

Judie

Installing Commercial Doors: I've installed my doors two different ways. I first discovered this problem with another dollhouse I was building, and the house was assembled already. I had a few choice words over that!

I tore off the bottom threshold of the door and trimmed the frame as well (about 1/8" off the bottom of the entire assembly). I removed the pin from the door and then drilled a new pin-hole where the pin had been in the bottom of the door and made sure it was deep enough to hold the entire length of my door pin. I also made the hole a little larger than the thickness of the pin, so that it would slip out easily. Next, I drilled a shallow hole in the floor (about 1/8" deep) in the place where the pin would normally come down out of the door into the floor. I slipped the pin into the door, covered it with a piece of thin paper to hold the pin in place while I positioned the door. Once in place, I pulled out the paper and allowed the pin to drop into the hole below. Voila! The door was fastened. (You might need to nudge it a little one way or another with a thin-bladed knife to get it into the hole.)

If your house is still disassembled, you can deepen the door hole by the 1/8" you'll need to drop the door down. Keep in mind the thickness of your flooring - you'll want to have your doorway be smooth with the rest of the floor on the inside rooms of the house. A front door will normally have a sill-plate, and so it's no problem to have the slightly rounded wooden barrier at those doors.

George Held, Cedar Rapids

I don't use the commercial doors as they come. I remove the pins and the threshold and install the door using hinges with no threshold (like my real home). If you do plan to use the threshold, I'd certainly sand them down bunches. Like you, seems the little people would trip over something that tall!

I always wanted to use hinges as the "real" doors do...except for swinging doors, I haven't seen a real door installed the way the mini doors come.

Rita Pierce

Nail Polish as Varnish: I also wanted to warn about using clear nail polish for finishing, as varnish. My son-in-law is a stock broker and I used his and my daughter's engagement picture reduced down with a cut out of a financial magazine across the top (you know those little stickers we all get trying to get us to buy subscriptions to magazines). Scanned this and printed it out and painted several coats of clear nail polish over it to give it a really glossy look, like a real mag. It looked great! However, I misplaced it before putting it into magazine form and placing in my house. Ran across it about 3 years later and you wouldn't believe how yellowish brown those little mags were! Awful! I don't know if it was the brand (who knows what brand I used now!) or if it was really old when I used it, but I just wanted to warn you about what "could" happen to something you paint with clear nail polish. I'll have to completely redo the little mags and use another glossy finish.

Rita

Mitering vs. coping: I have been reading, with great interest the on going discussions, over last several months, about mitering. I found mitering for inside corners of dollhouse less than desirable. A lot of fiddling and waste to get a perfect joint. No matter how square I made my rooms it posed a problem of making tight joints all the time.

I turned to coping. coping is the best way to do it if room is out of square and a great way still if it is square. First piece of molding goes in without any cut. The piece that miters to it is mitered at 45 degrees, as usual, and then with a fine jeweler's saw blade I cope the miter away, following the contour of the molding. It is best to cope a backwards angle of five or ten degrees or to finish it off with a fine jewelers file. This way the molding fits the contour of the molding already in place. If you do a good job of coping you have a near perfect fit at the corner.

Bill H

Mitering: I have something to add to what others have said about mitering and this is that you hold the flat (back) side of the molding against the wall of the miter box to make your cuts. Since the molding is smaller at the bottom than it is on the top, it means you have to press it against the sides to hold it firmly. Another way is to place the molding upside down in the miter box and make the cuts as though they would be on the floor - but this might be more confusing. They rest in the box a little better because the widest part of the molding lies flat in the box. With a little practice, I am sure you can do it right side up. Just measure first and then draw a line on the top (which will be glued to the ceiling) to show what angle to cut. I always measured the back wall first and then followed with the two sides.

Jeanette in Wisconsin

Wood finishing is a very complex subject: The definitive book is Understanding Wood Finishing, How to Select and Apply the Right Finish, Bob Flexner, Rodale Press, 1994, ISBN 0-87596-734-5.

Pete Boorum

Finishing Furniture: The furniture from that House of Miniatures swapmeet deal is turning out so beautiful. I am very careful now to stain before I put together. I've been using Minwax Wood Finish in Early American. This penetrates, stains and seals. I also bought the Minwax stain marker in the same shade. I used this marker originally when I was trying to figure what shade I was going to use. I used the pen until it was empty, and now I find that it is great, because of the felt tip, for dipping in the stain. Much neater than using a rag for staining.. I've learned to glue carefully when I put pieces together in case I have to touch up the stain later . So far, I like the look of just using this without putting anything over this finish. The finish feels velvety, and the pieces look like fine furniture.

Dolores

Sealer: I don't recommend using Watco as a sealer under paint because I don't know how long it takes for all the oil to evaporate. This is not a use recommended by the manufacturer. There could be an adhesion problem. It is a polyurethane filled mineral oil that is great in full scale but requires sanding between coats which is often difficult in miniature.

BTW be very careful with rags from Watco because they can self ignite and cause fires. Always put rags in a jar or can filled with water or directly into the wood stove. DON'T EVER PUT ANYTHING DAMPENED WITH WATCO INTO THE TRASH.

I use Watco almost exclusively in full scale for everything from kitchen cabinets to miniature room boxes. I like it because it is easy, there are no drips and it is a great look with unstained cherry or oak.

Pete

Prime Directive: << Can you paint directly on the plastic with acrylic paint or do you "have" to prime it first with something else? >>

This question answers itself. When you paint on a surface and the paint beads up and looks patchy because it won't stick... you should have primed it. Plastic is one of these things that needs primer.

Laurie Sisson