Another Scratch Build - Day 3

Well an update to my Georgian townhouse project.  I sat down with it today for the first time in what seems like months, but I'm fairly certain is only weeks - if not just one week... regardless, far too long.  We've had a lot of rain the last two weeks, and that humidity has taken its toll on my plywood.  All the walls, including the front opening facade, have warped.  It made it quite a challenge to build up the box structure for this house, and I'm not entirely sure what to do with the front halves of the house.  There must be a way to flatten them back out, and I will find it.



This afternoon I dremeled out the channels for my wiring and, as previously mentioned, assembled the box structure.  I'm torn on how to tackle the entry way, I would like paneling but I don't think it would look right with the crisp white interior doors.  I also haven't decided on how to paper the interior, and until I decide that I can't build the frame that the hinges will attach to.  So many directions to go when you don't have an instruction sheet guiding your every step!

I did however decide on a colour for the front door, it will be quite red with brass fittings.  I even have a mail slot here somewhere in this crap-room to put on the front of it.  I also started working on the staircase but then ran out of the triangle wood I'm using for the steps, so tomorrow I guess I will have to go to the hobby shop along with the gym.  Luckily they are right beside each other.

I'm still not 100% sure how to attach the hinges to the front panels yet, I may have to thicken up / reinforce / flatten the front panels with columns of some sort so the screws have something to bite into, and that may be enough to take the warp out of the panels so they fit together again.  There is also the front garden to assemble, that may just do the trick too.

Every door should be red in my opinion

I'm finding the directions in this book don't make sense until you just sit down and do it, then looking back after several choice utterances, it makes perfect sense and you don't really realize where the last four hours of your life went.  I suppose it's just the way the English phrase their sentences - helps I've been Americanized!

Day 2 - Beacon HIll

After a week of procrastination I decided it was high time to tackle the 2nd floor staircase, which of course meant tackling the wallpapering as well.

The second floor is a much plainer room, less room for furnishings and only one light, it couldn't handle the floral wallpaper of the ground floor.  I opted for a stylized yet relatively simple fabric which was again mod-podge'd onto the walls.  I will be able to carry the single square around to the front wall, which means I only have to match one seam on this wall (score!)

Before the front wall goes on I also decided it would be a good idea to get the flooring started as my head doesn't fit in this house what-so-ever.  I'm going with coffee stirrers again, I liked the grain that comes out when you stain them, they are fairly cheap, and you can say it's real hardwood that's been installed!

The flooring is possibly my favourite tedious part of a house, it's just mindless enough that you can watch TV or listen to the radio while doing it, but not so tedious that your hands cramp and eyes cross after the first ten minutes. I may find it so easy solely because of my easy-cutter, I really can't imagine doing it without.

Scratch build - Day 4

Dear readers I am ashamed to say that in my haste to build this next house I ignored two cardinal rules.  The first of these rules was "measure twice, cut once" - the second, and possibly the most important - dry fit.  With my front walls glued firmly in place I came to realize that the measurements on my hallway were all wrong.  Nothing about these measurements was at all correct.  Had i completed my foam core dryfit I would have realized this.

My hallway was supposed to be 7.5" wide, this allowed room for the stair kit I have which is 2.5" wide.  I'm not sure why something didn't trigger when I realized that my double door kit was too wide - regardless my beloved front wall had to come off tonight and now I have to figure out how to cut my base without taking down all the other glued and nailed walls so that I can add a spacer of three inches.

I wrestled with putting a "tower" on the back of the house but in the end I knew that I wanted to have visibility of the hallway, and if it was only 4" across it wouldn't be very impressive at all.  Two steps forward and one step back it seems!

I will have further news once I figure out the best way to cut my base!

Scratch build - Days 1 -- 3

 Now that I've had some practice on three kit builds I have decided it's time to put that humongous bundle of windows and doors to good use and make my own house from scratch.  To the right is my inspiration photo from a set of blueprints dated in the early 1900's.

I have no idea how I'm going to do the roof on the tower yet, or how to tackle the bay windows (mainly because I have to fashion my existing windows into skinnier versions of themselves) but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Day 1 was spent making a pattern out of foam core in an attempt to conceptualize the house.  Now that I'm in the middle of the build however all this has gone out the window - at this point I find myself winging it and I have no idea where to put the stairs!  There have been a couple of points where I found myself longing for a kit build so I could feel like I was making some progress - but today I got a table saw and it's sped things up considerably - I am now making straight cuts and not spending hours sanding the wood down to square up corners.

Access to the two "tower" rooms will be from a side opening much like in the Lily kit.  If I get truly adventurous / confident I will hinge a wall there so when the lights are on it doesn't cast strange light all over the place.

So far I think it's managed to avoid making "a box with windows" - that's the one type of little house I can't stand.  I'm not sure what it is about them that drives me mental - maybe because I think anyone can build a box.  I love the Greenleaf kits because none of them, even the colonials, have such a boxy look.