As I previously posted, I completed the Mouse House basement workshop last week. Over the weekend, I finished the other two “rooms” on the first level –the furnace room and the “entrance” to the house.

Here is a view of the furnace room with the furnace and the water heater that I built a few months ago:

And here is the completed room:

A crucial part of the room are the shelves I built to hang on the back wall. I’m discovering that the house looks best to me if they are full of stuff, so I gathered lots of things to put on the shelves including more paint cans like those I made for the workshop as well as new spray paint cans I created with labels from the internet and beads. The boxes were made from scrap paper and filled with extra miniatures I have laying around but won’t use otherwise.

I also made a ladder and hooks to hang it on and fastened that to the wall below the shelves.

Other homemade details include a fire extinguisher constructed with a toy bowling pin; books on the shelves I assembled by printing book covers and sewing pages inside; rickety saw horses I made with thin wood and lots of drippy paint; and a vegetable planting guide on the wall.

To complete the room I added a toy wagon full of sports equipment, a great metal folding chair, a fly swatter and a dart board–complete with darts!

For a size reference, here’s a picture of the room with my can propped against it:

The entry to the Mouse House is between the workshop and furnace room. There’s a trap door that can close and a ladder that can be extended down to the floor so the “mice” can get inside. At the rear of the entry is another rope ladder that extends all way to the attic of the house. I also added a bench, coat rack, bell to ring upon arrival, mirror (made out of a make-up compact), umbrella stand and, of course, the garbage which is waiting to be taken out.

The next level of the house includes the bathroom and laundry room so I will be experimenting with how to make water and bubbles. I can’t wait!