Distressed

“Hey Dad, can you take this wall out of my dollhouse and make the door taller, so my doll can walk through to the other side without having to bend down?”

I thought for a second about the innocent and seemingly simple request. A couple of screws, couple of chops on my miter saw (I don’t own a big table saw), use a hole saw attached to the end of my drill, and the job will be done. I will be a hero. As soon as I agreed to modify her dollhouse, another little girl had a request. She wanted me to make her another dollhouse out of a couple of white boards we had lying around. She just wanted it to be tall enough for her dolls to stand up in with two windows, a door and a peaked roof. I was hesitant, but I told her I would do the best I could with what we have.
Now it’s complicated, and I am not a carpenter, craftsman or any type of wood worker. I don’t even have half the tools required to do the job halfway “right.” Despite these facts, I decided I would give them the best job I could by taking my time and thinking it through, and hopefully, making them happy in the end.
The first part of my job went smooth. The wall was pretty easy to take out of the dollhouse, and I used it as a pattern on the new board and sketched out a larger outline for the door. I used my spooky little jigsaw. (It’s spooky because when you take your finger off the trigger, it keeps going a few seconds after you let go of the trigger.) I carefully followed the line I drew and when I finished the cut, the radius part of the door was off. Not a little but so much it looked as if a kindergartner had cut it out in a hurry. Then, I decided to use the hole saw attachment. This is designed to fit on the end of a drill and cut perfect holes in wood. As I started to cut this board, the saw suddenly jumped across the board and left a pattern of teeth marks all the way across the board. After I counted all my fingers and changed my shorts, I quickly searched my mind for a solution to all of these rough teeth marks across her wall.

Finally, I decided that maybe, just maybe, she would like a “distressed” wall. I see it all the time in flooring and interior design. I quickly added some more texture and prayed. When I finished, I showed it to her sister, who wanted the homemade dollhouse. She looked at it. She touched it and looked at it again. Then she asked me to do it for her house too. They both loved the end result and asked me how in the world I made it look so cool. If only they really knew….Dad, the hero.