Assembling the shell
Entry posted by Deb
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With all the windows installed and the door frames in place, I was ready to assemble the shell. The Magnolia has an interlocking design, so there’s a specific order for assembly.
First I put the center partition in place on the first floor. It slides into a slot on the first floor.
Then I added the front door section which also slides into a slot on the first floor:
And then the second floor:
The pole in the center is one I put in place to support the floor while I assembled the house. I don’t like floppy floors while I’m putting up walls.
Next, I put on the center section of the front bay window. It adds additional support for the floor while I work with the rest of the bays.
I’m a little bit challenged when it comes to bays. No matter how careful I am, I always end up with gaps. But I have discovered that the following process does reduce the amount of gaps for me.
I install the center piece of a bay first:
Then I put on the sides:
After the bays were on, I installed the other wall.
Now that the main walls are in place, I can work on the interior of the first floor. As I mentioned, I have challenges with gaps in the bays, so I learned from Nutti about using bamboo skewers to cover the joins. Not only does it cover any gaps, but I think it is a lovely finished look and a nice architectural finish. On some houses, I overlap the wallpaper on the interior joins of a bay, but in this house, I wanted the woodwork to really stand out and “pop” the wallpaper. So on the interior of the bays, I installed bamboo skewers cut to size and painted to match the rest of the woodwork. I think it really defines the shape of the bay in this house.
While the paint was drying on the skewers, I cut basswood strips for baseboards and painted them to match. The baseboards continue thru the entire house around all the lower edges. I like that finished look in a mini house. In some houses, I use a 3/4 round moulding, but in this house, a more defined look was appropriate so I used simple basswood strips.
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