For the past two and a half days I've been fighting the "good fight" with the trim pieces, especially the *#%%**##!! trim for the shutters. Sealing the wood first DOES NOT HELP! My suggestion to the good do-bes at Greenleaf is to try to use the really good plywood that appears in the newer kits for the dies that include any trim with right angled elements and punchouts, because more than one of the total 18 shutter trim pieces had layers shatter & go flying off all over the floor. Because the lady who wants this house wants it the way it looks on the box I crawled around the floor after these stray bits and carefully glued them back on. At the last I had small sections fly off the backside of the trim & I mumbled "sayonara" (it may not have sounded like that's what I said, but whatever I said, I meant every word) & went on.

After the last coat of paint went on today I began to glue on the siding. There is no way to draw the spacing lines for the siding until the first strip is on, and as I feared, this thin wood really likes to curl up. I can only hope once the glue is dry it won't curl the other way when it's painted. Needless to say I'm using a red fine-point pen for the sets of spacing marks I'm actually using.

Once the siding is on & painted, before I even install the trim I'm going to reward myself by making another goodie for the kitchen.

complements of havanaholly