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Sunday, May 14, 2017

Dollhouse Wiring 101 pt 7 Installing a Lamp in Your Dollhouse




After I showed you how to actually find the tapewire in your dollhouse I got a lot of requests to show the process of installing the table lamps/floor lamps in the dollhouse. Since I don't want to add any lamps to my corner roombox I wasn't sure where I was going to demo this. Then I remembered that I had this old dollhouse shell in the back of my storage closet. I knew I had wired it when I built it so I dug it out yesterday and since the wiring works I am using one of the rooms in it to show you the process. I also found my box of miscellaneous electrical stuff and there was a functional (although broken) table lamp in it. Yeah for holding on stuff that I think I will never use!! So with those things in hand we are installing a lamp today.

The process is fairly simple.

First you need to find your tapewire under the wallpaper. I won't go into that today since we covered that last time.

Next you need to make two holes that correspond with your tapewire runs. I did this off camera since I think we can all drill holes where we have marked. Since this shell is made of MDF I did need an actual drill bit to make the holes.

The next step is to cut off the plug from the fixture. If I was planning to use this lamp in this location I would have cut the cord closer to the lamp (shorter cord) but since I might want to move it later I left a lot of cord in case I need it later.

After you cut off the cord separate the two bundles of wires like I showed in an earlier video and strip off the plastic coating from the bundles. I also recommend making the bare bundles fairly short, that makes them easier to work with and you are less apt to short out your wiring.

Now you need to poke one of those bundles of wires into one of the holes you made in the wall. Quickly (before the wires slip out) push a grommet into the hole with the wires. This will do 2 things it will create contact between the wires and your tapewire and it will hold the wires into the hole.

Now just repeat with the second wire bundle and hole.

It is now time to turn the electricity back on to the dollhouse and see that your lamp works. If not turn everything off and try pushing the grommets in tighter. That is usually the problem when they don't work in this type of installation.



So now the story of the dollhouse shell that I was using. This is one of those purchases that I think we all make, we think we are going to love the item and then we start to work with it and find we really don't.

This dollhouse was a kit that was offered in a local store, not even a craft store just my local store I buy my groceries and such at (Fred Meyer, for those in the Pacific Northwest, if you are curious) The kit was made by a dollhouse company that used to be here in Oregon (Dura-Craft) The kits were brought in one year around Christmas and they had some on the shelves for several months. I picked up this house as well as some kits that I later sold when they clearanced them out.

I thought I would like the house but found what when working with it because of the shape there really just wasn't enough wall space to decorate and make it the way I wanted it to be. It sat for years half finished until I moved it to my storage room closet a couple of years ago.

Now that it is out I am thinking about using it for some tutorials. Not sure what kind of tutorials but something maybe.




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