Glencroft - Day 27

I'm on to the landscaping portion of my build, this is where I'm finding it difficult to keep the pace up, There is just so much to do and I don't know what to tackle first!  The last couple of days I have been working on the fence and yard on the house.  I'm fairly certain the light on the front of the house has been thoroughly destroyed by the cat so I have to figure out how to replace that fixture with the least amount of damage.

 The paperclay shrunk an incredible amount on the paving stones, I'm not sure why but I"m fixing the issue with moss and grassmat.   The shrub is actually supposed to be an orange tree.  the raised bed will be filled in, some gravel/soil and tiny plants made for a kitchen garden.

 Overall, i just need to find the window frames for the upstairs west window, I still haven't had any luck tracking them down.  I may have to raid the second kit in the garage - but then what would I do with that one!

Glencroft Table and Scratch Build Progress

I have been spread between two houses today.  I started with a table for the Glencroft to sit on - just to get it off the floor if nothing else.  The kitten had far too easy access to the house while it was on ground level.  The table has some work left on it obviously, I'm going to dress up the table top a bit - I struggled to keep the design somewhat simple to go with the "basic" style of the house.

The centre of the table top was cut out so the wiring and fuses are still accessible.  The benefit to the table is that I can now do some landscaping!  The house oddly doesn't seem nearly as big now that it's elevated.

On my scratch build, it was a two steps back day - I had to knock down the walls I had up and rip the base in half.  I cut / added a 5 inch spacer to give a bit more room to the hallway and living room. Now I play the waiting game until the glue has fully set.

A House in 22 days - Day 13 - Christmas Eve Eve

 The elves are thoroughly whipped and the house is thoroughly done!  The house wasn't quite 22 days, we actually did it in 13... with an average of 10 hours per day... each... so 260 hours all said and done.  I feel like I've run the Boston marathon!

The final trim bits have been glued in place, the paperclay is done on the chimney, and the cap is on (not pictured).  Ben and I came close to killing each other only once during the whole process which is pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

Things I would have done differently on this build - more time.  I hate a rush build, I like to agonize over placement of everything, this is a hobby that definitely appeals to my OCD tendencies.  I would have used a saw to cut the siding rather than a utility knife to get cleaner edges, and I would have added plexi glass to the sunroom rather than the GL plastic window.  I definitely wish we had taken the few extra hours to electrify the house.  I wouldn't use the wooden shingles again, I would go with paper clay and simulated the terra cotta shngles.

 Things I love about this house, I love the front entrance bash.  As much as some light was lost taking out the floor to ceiling windows I think the functioning doors and steps / planters more than make up for it.  The pink is growing on me, at first I really hated it but as everything came together I think it actually suits the house pretty well.

I really like the lay out of the kit, it's different than your standard four room box, I'm quite pleased with the stairway and we're already planning on getting some appliances for a kitchen set and finding a smaller dining room table for the "dining hall" (blue room).

I will actually be sad to see this house go in spite of my aggression towards it earlier today when I thought it might not be done in time for christmas :)

A House in 22 days - Day 10 & 11

Day 10 was siding and stonework.  Ben tackled the MDF siding boards while I slaved away at the pasta machine.  After the clay was secured to the wall I wet it down and scrubbed the pieces of clay together.  The slick surface is easier to work with I find - and often spritz it with a plant mister to keep things moist.  The lines were pressed in with the lever on a set of nail clippers, and then the wet clay drug back up over to create raised edges / texture.

The MDF siding appears to be extremely difficult to cut, I have to say I'm quite glad i'm not working with it :)

 The sunroom tip out has been a quandary - I really didn't know how to approach this one.  I had cut out a room sized rectangle of foamcore and was prepared to do the floor on this to keep it all on one level.  This involved bringing the paper clay foundation up higher however as the foamcore was visible through the windows.  In the end I used the foamcore as a pattern for a lino tile.  I then finished off the ledge between rooms with thin slices of lino tile.


The paper clay foundation was then ready to go on, I really like the look it gives to the sunroom, it makes it look more substantial!











The paper clay stone work which went on in day 10 was painted today with layers of watercolour paints.  I filled in the lines between the stones first and then applied different layers of yellow, brown, and grey over top.

 The next segment of paper clay to be done is the front entrance.  I have glued together the planters which came with the kit (pardon the tape) - the plan is to paperclay the planters and steps into one piece which can then be glued to the deck

I really wish we had electrified this house, I think it would be one of the neater ones to see lit up!  With 2 days to go until christmas, I'm beginning to think we just may make it (as you can see the roof is going up currently)

A House in 22 Days - Day 7 & 8

I have to say this kit goes together pretty darned easy, I haven't had near the fight with it I did with the Chantilly and Glencroft.  After pulling 14 hour days on Saturday and Sunday, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The floors are down and the walls are up.  The two wings have been glued into place (this house is freaking huge) and the roof should be going on today.  The house was reinforced with corner moulding on the corners and the siding will be fitted between.  The only thing i'm not happy with is the ladder to the loft - I don't like the look of it.  I don't think I will have time to build a new ladder however.

 We also started the furniture from a Greenleaf kit as a hold over until better pieces can be found - at least christmas shopping will be easier for H for the next couple of years!

The only downfall I see to these kits is the room sizes are so strange, they are either far too big or uselessly small.  I really can't wait to start a scratch build so everything is exactly how I want it - as you can see the temporary occupant feels the same way!

A House in 22 Days

 My partner decided he wanted to build a dollhouse for his niece for Christmas.  I happened to be in a store which was liquidating its dollhouse inventory and managed to pick up a Brookwood kit for $20.00.  The kit sat around for months, I even offered to Ebay it if he no longer wanted to build it.  Sadly he did - and the panic set in on December 4th.  Day 1 was pretty hectic but managed to get quite a bit done on the kit so far, then he realized that the front door on this kit is quite tiny.  The door kits I had lying around were far too wide for the wall where the door is supposed to go, so the only option became bashing the kit (just to make things easier).

As a result, the front windows on the ground floor are now a set of double doors with side lights.  We also managed to get the chimney assembled, paperclayed, painted, and some of the stucco completed!  This is going to be a wild project if it's going to be done in time.

Glencroft - Day... who knows now

I'm not nearly as religious about blogging when working on my own wee house it seems, I suppose it doesn't help that the majority of us seem to show off our hard work at the green leaf forums these days!  Regardless, despite radio silence, I have been working diligently on the Glencroft in the desperate hopes of clearing off some table space so Ben might work on the house he was planning on giving his neice for Christmas, or should we fall behind schedule, her birthday.  Although it doesn't matter how much space is cleared off, it never seems to be enough, he may be intimidated by the amount of work these tiny houses appear to contain!

That said, here is my progress.

1.  The paper clay shingles.  Greenleaf supplies sheets of thin shingles with this kit.  I actually did consider using them until I realized that my house would look like thousands of other ones out there if I did that.  I also remember having a hell of a time getting them on straight, keeping them from migrating, and an even colouring throughout because of glue spots and whatnot.  I went with my tried and true method from the Chantilly and dug out the pasta maker then cut inch wide strips, notched the strips for the look of individal shingles and glued them on with modpodge.  Every couple of shingle rows I would go back with my knife and texture them to look a bit more like wood-grain, specifically pulling at the lower edge with the blade so that it both cut in a bit and pulled back.  I think this gives you more of a realistic yet story book illustration type of roofing shingle.

2.  The base coat - to get a colour variation between shingles, I applied a base wash of greys and yellows, mixing on the fly so no two shingles are actually the same colour.  It's painstaking, and to be honest I don't know if it actually makes a difference once you put the stain on.  I was thinking of leaving the shingles in grey tones but it was too much grey on the house between the stonework on the front/chimney.

3.  Wood stain - I coated the roof in Minwax "Provincial 211".  I definitely prefer the darker shingles, but love that it doesn't match up whatsoever with my timbering on the front of the house.

Last but not least, this is my first electrified house, for months the little roundwires have been played with by the kitten, tripped over, painted over, glued, taped, moved, trampled on and yanked upon.  At long last I was able to locate a transformer.  The unfortunate side to this story is that I wasn't able to test any of my lighting before moving forward.  I am currently sitting at a higher than expected success rate with all lights working but the upstairs ones.  I need to check bulbs at this point, if there's a break in the wiring I have no way to access them and the lights become purely ornamental.

1.  interior lighting shot of the living room

2.  Exterior shot of the ground level.

Next the interior progress.  I'm almost done since the last post anyways.  I have flooring left to do in the study and a bit of trimwork to figure out, but the interior finally made it over the slow hump or the ("to hell with this I'm leaving you on the side of the road" stage).  The floors on the bottom level are cut up lino tiles in a stone pattern and then grouted with spackle, toned with watercolours.  The second floor bedroom is strip wood stained and glued in place.  I also have the doors up and hinged aside from the dining room door, it is waiting patiently in the wings, and the windows leaded and half installed.  

Glencroft - Day 22

I've been terribly busy with work so the house has gone on the back burner so to speak.  I think I needed a break from it regardless, the interior work was dragging on terribly and after being left alone for a week or so, the house seems to almost be putting itself together!.

Since my last post I have finished wallpapering.  The smaller upstairs room is becoming a study and was papered with fabric swatches.  The larger room has been paneled, papered, and stucco'd using the TP Stucco method.  The bashed window in the now dining room has also been finished.  The leadwork was done with silver jewelers tape and transparency film - with a coat of clear nail polish over the finished product to give a glass look.

I had a bit of difficulty with the roof on this kit, I think that's the one part of every house that causes the most grief.  After several gluings however, it seems to now be sticking.

Tonight I tackled the paperclay exterior.  Riverstone for the chimney and flagstone for the main house structure.  I'll attach pictures but there will be another wash or two of colour to go on before the stone work can be called completed.

I've also hung the front door and started the interior doors.  These are by far the smallest "nails" I have ever encountered.  I got around the size issue by driving pilot holes with finishing nails, and then filling the holes with super glue.  Then I put the tiny nails into the hinge and lowered the hinge/nails into the pilot holes and clamped them in with pliers.  I've been swinging the door all evening and everything seems to be holding so I think this approach will work.

Glencroft - Day 14

Well the move is finally over and the boxes are rapidly approaching "unpacked".  I even have the place to myself tonight so I dove head first into the miniature land and worked on my Glencroft with fervor for the first time in weeks.

I had been debating the idea of making larger, oriel windows in the smaller main floor room of the house because I want to use it as a dining room.  With a sample dining set in there the windows are far too high for the room to function at all in this capacity.  I had been debating building a larger window before I got the kit, and this approach is far out of my comfort zone, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with the finished product if I didn't try.

The trusty dremel eventually made it through the wood and I ripped the window opening on the right hand side down an additional two inches, and thus became committed to figuring out how to build windows from scratch.  Tonight I started building the oriel casement but soon realized that it was a bit much to take on considering I have no idea how to build scratch windows.  Instead I am building a cantilevered window with a tall exterior casing.  I want to add carving detail to the upper "cabinet" of the structure, or possibly just stucco the upper portion and frame it in Jacobean stained wood.

I am happy with the results so far, it's really opened up the room.  I briefly toyed with expanding the front window slot to allow for two smaller windows to be installed to centre them more from the interior.  It may still happen, nothing has been ruled out yet :)


I then wanted to feel like I got something done so I started on the stucco for the outside of the house.  I knew I didn't want to use the spackle and paint method because of the small spaces between the 2nd floor brackets, plus I find the texture is too "big" for this scale I'm working in.  I went with the toilet paper stucco approach and I think it's pretty bang on - not to mention easy!

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Glencroft - Day 4 through 6

I've been working sporadically on Glencroft while I was sick this last week, mostly because everything I need to finish off the Chantilly is still in a box, somewhere, probably wrapped in paper and dust.

I have the second floor installed and glued.  I put white cardstock up in the living room rather than try to plaster, and I was very sure I didn't want stucco on all the walls.  I then undertook the paperclay fireplace.

First off, Paperclay is vastly superior to the DAS modelling clay I used in the Chantilly.  It has virtually no odour, isn't sticky, and takes longer to dry so it is far easier to work with.  Also it goes through the pasta machine much slicker which is again because it isn't sticky.

I rolled out numerous strips of paper clay and glued them to the bare plywood, then with a moist paper towel I smoothed the pieces together and built up some texture.  Next the stones were shaped by pressing the lines in and pulling the clay towards the centre of the stone to add depth.

After the clay dried I added black watercolours to the cracks in the stone and blocked in stone colours with the left over paint on my watercolour palette.  A few dirty washes of grey with a bit of yellow or red and the tones were evened out quite nicely.

The wiring was a touch trickier than I thought, i dug out a channel for the right wall sconce with my dremel and built the clay up over top.  the left sconce and the candles on the second floor have individual holes for the wires to run through, at this point I know the power strip is either going in the chimney or in the foundation,either way the wires are traveling through the chimney to get to their destination.

When I built the baseboard in the living room I left them high enough to accomodate hardwood flooring, they will also accommodate the roundwire should I decide to add table or floor lamps.  The dining room / kitchen will have ceiling fixtures.The hardest part of the wiring so far has been the planning by a long shot.  It's hard to know where you will want lighting when all you have built is a portion of a large box!