Flooring and... ceiling-ing?

Dear Wikipedia,

I must say that your 'ceiling' article is extremely disappointing to those of us who rely upon you for knowledge and instruction in all things, including miniature cabin construction. Please make it better.

Yours sincerely,

Shasti


I had been working on the best method for putting a random-plank wood floor in the library, and had resigned myself to this option -- pre-made sheets of wood veneer flooring, designed for dollhouses, easy to install (but also a little fancier and less hand-made than I had hoped).

I didn't want to make an actual wood floor, because my mom did that once with a dollhouse when I was little and it didn't go well -- the strips were really difficult to line up, and then they didn't stay glued down securely. I didn't want the books catching on the floor (I have to keep reminding myself that the end purpose of the structure is to hold books). I also didn't want to just leave the floor as-is, because Thoreau didn't have access to plywood so that's hardly authentic.

Then I found an offhand comment on a discussion board about dollhouses, that suggested just drawing the planks on the unfinished wood and then staining over it. BEST. IDEA. EVER.

So I spent part of the evening with a ruler and pencil (the pen was too dark and fake-looking, but the pencil is just right) marking out the planks on both floor and ceiling and the trapdoor in the floor. Now I have to decide where the floor joists would be, so that I can mark the ends of the floorboards and mark the nail holes. I also have to decide where the ceiling joists (are they still called joists in the ceiling?) will go, make them, and glue them on. Haven't decided if those will be 'boards' made of lath or 'boards' made of 'trees' a.k.a. branches from my pine tree. Thoreau used both, of course, but didn't feel the need to specify exactly which he used for what. Some are easy, like of course the floor and the door were shanty boards and the rafters were tree boards, but others are more... shall we say... open to interpretation? That's ok, though, because I enjoy interpreting things.