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Willowcrest, San Fran, Westville, Beacon Hill and others

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First full exterior coat!

Well I finished up the siding late last night, which is a sort of milestone, and I let it all dry overnight and just finished the first full coat-- The paint can says to give it four hours before recoating, so I will get busy with the corner trim pieces...
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Chugging along with...

...siding-- so far I've finished all but the right wall, which hubby has "defaced" with mini graffiti and I am looking forward to covering up with siding (one can't see it in this photo-- it says things like "West Side Locos" and such): As soon as I finish siding, I'll start painting... Three coats seem to work well... Then it's time for the trim pieces on the corners...
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Bay work.

Well here we are with the third coat of paint, and the porch roof, trim assembly and posts in place: I think the paint looks more pink with flash, more orange without, and darker in person... I am pretty happy with the posts, which turned out very smooth and shiny with a sealer. I am puzzled about the part where the posts slide into the trim, because in various pictures I have seen (including kit instructions), it looks as though the posts slide up into a three-sided e
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Exterior paint.

Here I have the under-porch area of the exterior walls sided, and the porch with trim is dry-fitted on: One can make out some rafters (skinny sticks)-- I spaced them such that they'll make convenient hanging points for a porch swing... So I put the first coat of exterior paint onto the siding: Left w/ flash, right w/o. Hmmmm... I'll see how it looks with a second or third coat...
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Porch in progress.

I have been working on the porch pieces in bits and pieces over the last few weeks; I glued together the posts: I did my first light installation! Well it is not completely installed; I still need to drill some holes to direct the wire to where the terminal strip will be... I started the siding here too. butterflyex recommends installing siding before putting in the rest of the porch pieces; I thought long and hard about this and decided to go ahead because of the porc
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Mansard roof on.

I installed the trim pieces; I'll have to go over them with another coat or two of paint... I just now noticed that the roof trim pieces were actually the ones I wanted stained, like Angelo's, but oh well. I guess they'll be white now. Then I installed the mansard roof pieces (after tracing them out on paper for shingle templates). I took a line from Gina's (butterflyex) BH build blog and trimmed the lower edges of the pieces instead of bowing them out and popping them
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Goodies in the mail!

My April Fool's order from Ernie's came in (kitchen sink and dining set), as did my purchase from Tina's Dollhouses (everything else). The little packets on the 2nd floor are "porcelain" door knobs for the interior doors, and the film cans in the kitchen contain little gold-colored window handle pulls! I was thinking of putting Tina's living room set into the Pierce and putting my white-with-gold-accent set into the BH: Hmmm... I think I will
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More roof construction, and colors...

Well I turned the house on its side and started marking out where I wanted the ceiling lamps, but quickly realized that there was only one room which I could light up at this point, and that was the 1st floor foyer because it is well on its way to being finished. I can't install ceiling lights and expect to get into the rooms to paper and panel 'em... So postponed the lighting further... So I squeezed the roof top on, and poured wood glue liberally all around as per the directions..
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Roof supports going up.

Well not the supports themselves, but the interior wall bits on the 3rd floor: I have punched out all the mansard roof and support pieces, and am "fixing" to start sanding away... I took an interior pic of the 1st floor staircase, which is now in a position where one has to place a camera, aim through the hallway-foyer door opening, and hope the aim is good: I like that view! I need to see if I can fit some trim into that corner,
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Toodling along.

So, in the spirit of waiting as long as possible before installing the front wall... Here I dry-fitted the 2nd floor partition, with closet door (pin-hinged), and then finally got to installing the partition: Whoops, looks like I need to start piling on some wood paste... I put some ceiling boards between the staircase and the front in the 1st floor foyer, because I knew I wouldn't be able to get to that bit once I installed the front wall... I finally put in the front
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Closet.

A bit flu-ish today, so not doing much of anything... The 1st floor partition pieces are in, but the 2nd floor partition has to wait until the closet space is ready. I made a pin-hinge frame for the closet door, with straight pins: I'll trim this door and paint it white, and look for a door knob. I made a shelf with a closet rod from scraps; when the paint dries, I'll glue it in place and then brush sealer all over the closet interior. Then it'll be ready for the parti
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Put pictures in 1st flr stairwell.

I had been meaning to do this-- put some family photos in the 1st floor stairwell-- they will not be visible from the front, though one can make out that there are frames there: I cut off the heads of straight pins and dug little holes out for them with my exacto, for nails for the frames to hang. In the Lily, I just glued the little frames directly to the walls, and it always bothered me that they were hanging "on thin air"...
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Still trimming 2nd floor.

Still plugging away at 2nd floor staircase and railing trim: I have the front wall and divider walls primed, but I need to sand and paper 'em... I need to finish up the trim in the foyers first before I put the front wall though, or I'll never be able to get to it...
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Slow progress!

Well I had to take some time out over the weekend and get the Orchid ready to ship out-- pics in my gallery. It is a bit sad to see the little brick house go, I guess, but it was time, and I hope the recipients will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. Meanwhile, back at the bannisters, I finally got around to putting on the third floor. There is a reason that one should do it when the instructions say to, and your humble correspondent now has unsightly gaps here and there. Oh w
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2nd flooring work.

Here is the 1st floor foyer with its flooring (not glued in place): I laid stained popcycle sticks on the 2nd floor foyer template, going for a rustic-er look; I left space to put post lines: The maple looks right orange-y so I may try to find a way to tone it down some. Either that, or tie it into the room with wall hangings and such... I sprayed each flooring twice with a semigloss wood finish; the 2nd floor is lo
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Foyer flooring.

Spent a while fiddling with the 1st floor foyer flooring template: I think I will replace the maple-colored bits in the center with cherry instead... Looks a bit odd...
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Finally installing 1st fl staircase.

So here is a close-up of the detail around the lower part of the case: I need to put some pictures or something on the case, but I figured that (at least for a bit) I will have access to it... So I decided to bite the bullet and put the staircase in. Whoo-boy, something was off square. For a bit, I had it rigged up to try to make ends meet: Then I decided to make the best of it, not in the least because the strain on the second floor was maki
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Well so much for red stair runner...!

Well I finally figured out what I should've seen in the first place-- the red ribbon was just too wide for the stair rods...! And I couldn't make longer rods, or else they wouldn't fit between the spindles, because I had not spaced the spindles away from the risers enough. Well moving on-- I went ahead and used the gold-toned ribbon after all, because it was the right width for the rods... At this point, I need to finish the lower panel work, and put all the upp
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Working on staircase.

Today I can finally get back to my staircase, after a couple weeks... I measured out and painted some stair rods, using gold + burnt umber mix to complement the beads that form the ends: I was dissatisfied with the gold-toned ribbon because it did not seem to relate to the wallpaper well, so I found some wired red at Walmart: I think that will do. I might use the gold-toned for the 2nd floor staircase. Right now I am panelling the staircase b
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Runner, perhaps.

So I went to the craft store after work, where I found that great ribbon for the Pierce staircase... Pickins were slim this time but I found an edged gold-tone ribbon that has the right width, as well as a lace that might be a bit too wide: It is hard to see, but I have two beads on either end of a toothpick to represent the stair rods. I'll have to shorten the pick and paint it similar to the beads. I have a scrap of wallpaper there too; I plan to do some trim detaili
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1st floor staircase.

I put wallpaper in the first floor foyer, on the wall where the staircase will sit: This is card stock proper, and I like it much better than any of the thinner papers that I have used so far for my printable wallpaper. Don't know why I didn't try this in the first place! The paper will have plenty of time to dry before I put the staircase in, because I still have plenty of wrangling to do. I don't really like the kit's railing design, so I got some extra
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Gluing and such.

So I sanded down the primed pieces and put 'em all back together, and thought, well why not glue 'em at this point, and see what happens? So I did. I was very careful with the wood glue so I wouldn't get great globs of it all around hard as rock, like I unfortunately did with the Pierce. I also paid careful attention to keeping things square, though the right front wall did not want to sit on the first floor as it should... I sort of glued in the order that the instructions said, but since it wa
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Hmmmm.

So at this point I am stringing my wires along ceilings and edges and such. I don't see why I can't go ahead and take apart the dry fit, prime everything, sand it down, and start putting together my wallpapers before re-assembly. Why not do that step now when everything is open, instead of trying to cram my fingers into a small room to do this?
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Dry fit.

Here is a dry fit of the main wall and floor pieces; they fit together pretty well, sort of like a puzzle: I put all the light fixtures in about the place where I will want 'em, to figure out how to string the wires: The lights even work! The bulbs on the second and third floors will be for fireplaces, and the bulb lying in the middle of the third floor will be put up in the attic: Even Mister Blinky down in the k
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Proof...!

...that I actually cracked open the BH box...! The base is quite large. I went through all the sheets and checked 'em off-- now, this was unexpected: The Mansard roof pieces are a thin wood veneer over cardboard, and pre-curved for my convenience, apparently! (Now, why couldn't the Lily kit have had that feature...) There was an insert in the instructions logging a change on the roof piece locations-- it looks as though the piece
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