Now for the fun part…………..turning a stack of pretty colored wood into a house. The Lily has a center partition that interlocks with all three floors and the front wall. I recommend not applying any glue during this process until you have all the pieces in place. The Lily is a tight fit and you'll find that you have to loosen a few pieces that are in place to get the inner partitions and the staircases in place.

The first step is to put the two main walls together with the first floor. By squaring those pieces and taping them in place, it ensured that the second and third floors would also go in square. If the walls and floors are not square, the center partition will not fit smoothly and will offset the entire house. Once I had all three floors in (taped, but not glued), I turned the house on its side so the center partition could be inserted.

During the dry fit, I had marked the tabs to be shaved and the slots that needed to be widened which really paid off when it came time to assemble the shell. I removed the tabs at the bottom of the smallest piece of the center partition that forms the corner of the living room and kitchen because the partition wouldn't slide in with it intact. One of the reasons for leaving the walls and floors unglued is that getting the center partition to interlock requires putting it in at a slight slant, especially on the top floor. I worked the partition in just a little bit at a time, stopping every inch or so to make sure that it was lining up correctly on all floors. The top floor tabs fit together against the inside edge of the opening for the stairwell but I recommend not easing them together until you have the rest of the partition locked into place on the other two floors and the tabs on the front of the house.

Once the center partition was in, I placed the staircases on both floors. I had to loosen the wall/floor joins just a bit to get the staircases in because it is a snug fit on both floors. The staircases definitely need to go in before the inner walls on the first floor.

After I had the staircases in and glued in place, I set the inner wall partitions in place. The first floor partitions divide the foyer from the living room and the kitchen from the foyer. There is a third partition that is set flush against the staircase in the kitchen. Again, they were a tight fit vertically, so I removed the tabs on the bottom to be able to set them in place. I use baseboards on the bottom of all walls which will compensate for the missing tabs to hold the walls in place at the bottom. After I had the partitions in place on the first floor and verified that everything was square and solid, then I glued it all in place. If you can obtain a syringe used for feeding pets, it works quite well to put glue into the crevices after they've been assembled so you don't have to loosen things up too much and lose the fit.

The inner partitions for the second floor went in next to make the hallway and bathroom. Because those partitions go at the side that was still open for the bay, there was more leverage to lift the floor and slide the walls in, so I didn't have to remove any tabs from those partitions.

Here's the kitchen/living room partition:

Adding the foyer and second living room/kitchen partition:

And the second floor partitions:

After a cup of tea and a sigh of relief, I put the frames on the side and back openings of the house. I had been a little worried about the back opening since there was some warping of the first floor. The Lily is going to be an heirloom house and I want to make sure it is solidly built and will last for generations so I did some modifications to the underside for stability. I used Gorilla Glue to bond the first floor to the bottom of the frame and then clamped and taped it tightly. To create beams for the underside, I used basswood in ½ inch cube about 8 inches long. I laid the house on its side and then applied Gorilla Glue to two sides of the beams and snugged them up into the 90 degree angle where the walls and floor meet. I put the support beams along the outside edges of the walls/floors and also on either side of the center partition. After it dried, I had a solid and secure foundation to hold the house firmly.