Friday, July 3, 2009

How Now Brown House? A Little Bit about Fading




This is what happens when the Barbie A frame is left in the attic for 25 years or direct sunlight। Everything turns a creamy brown-the yellow, the white and the orange. BROWN BROWN BROWN-bad bad bad. I brightened my Strawberry Shortcake Gazebo with soft scrub with bleach, but that didnt work on my A frame. You have to bath it (and yes it left a ring around my tub, ew!), clean and dry it really good with toothbrush and q tips, then spray paint it. I used a high quality Krylon all in one safe for plastic white spray paint. I have used primer and clear coat on past projects with disastrous results. something with how the different chemical layers react to each other leaving bubbling and crackling. The A frame I painted came out great, a bit powdery and not factory smooth but it went from brown/beige to bright white. I always buff out the texture to almost as smooth as before with an old tee shirt or extremely soft cloth. Totally worth it. You can see here how some windows fade to white while others are still yellow. if you want that crisp factory color for your A frame, after painting all the main structure parts white, you can simply reverse the windows and doors for the non-faded side (or apply yellow hardware/craft store tape trimmed to fit, see replacement parts post). You can get a crisp minty house for the price of a faded uncared for one. Suzy Orman would approve you! (for more detail on this check out the Brown vs White post)

Unfortunately, the windows are not immune to yellowing. Obviously, for the solid doors you can repaint, but for the clear all I can recommend is to cover the trim with yellow detail tape (as outlined in another post), if the pane yellowing is so bad then perhaps a complete custom replacement is in order. 

This house is a prime candidate for a color change.




1978 Mattel A Frame Barbie Dream Doll House Red roof yellow floors mod groovy 1970s 1980s custom OOAK



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