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Building the Washington 2.0


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That I can understand, I know that when we started the process moving over here back in spring -10 I brought the Adams to have here just because I needed to have something to put my hands on now and again in between so to speak. and now I am actually in the process of getting the lighthouse together, redoing last year's fling after the disaster tumbling down a little in the stairs so all in all, good to be building again!

Hugs

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Yesterday between afternoon showers it cooled off enough that I could go spend a couple of hours playing. I stained both sets of treads and risers and made a box for a front door and then proceeded to design and cut out a new front door with an oval window opening, and then sanded and primed the pieces.

I also freehand drew a cartoon for the leaded "glass" insert, and then went ahead and traced it in Liquid Lead onto the flat, smooth part of the plastic box whose ripply sides became panes in the bathroom windows.

The kit has no interior trim pieces for either doors or windows, so for my next trick I made interior door frames that are drying in the gluing jig next to the front door's box. I got all the pieces cut out and mitered for the interior window frames. Next I have to cut & miter six door frame sets for the three interior doors.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I ran out of the stripwood I was using for the interior frames, so after my last minute trip to the dentist we headed into Pensacola for lunch and a trip to the hobby shop. It has moved, but it has moved into a shopping center MUCH closer to our house and where there is a Harbor Freight and a Good Will. They are still moving merchzandise from their old location but the owner was so tickled that I wanted to buy the mini basswood millwork that he sold me a priority mail flat boxful of as many bundles of millwork as I could cram into it for USD$6.

I decided to use the plain frames I have for most of the hallway interior doors' trim and made pretty new ones for the interior around the front and kitchen doors. Today I finished painting those and started on the attic window, which looks oh, so crude and chunky. I removed the crosspiece mullion, which was most unattractive, and laid toothpicks for louvers along a strip of masking tape the height of the inside of the window frame; once I have painted the frame I shall glue it to the louvers. Meanwhile I traced around the frame onto a scrap of basswood the right size to make, you guessed it, the missing interior attic window frame. I'm priming the attic window frame with gesso to cover the flaws in the wood, and then sand it smooth before painting it.

Washington decided today was the day she wanted to discuss wall treatments. She did NOT like the yellow paper I was going to use on two walls that matched the floor; she liked the green RL paper I have MUCH better; so I painted the back wall with the bay window a green that will coordinate with the paper, and I found a really pretty border paper to tie it all together. I found the paper I was originally going to use in Mildred's bathroom along with some borders that Anna printed off for me. We're arguing right now whether she wants the Chrysnbon or the Corona Concepts bathroom fixtures.

Both exterior doors now have all their knobs & handles, as well as the windows. I still need to put knobs on the interior doors.

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There are 30 exposures on the film roll and I keep forgetting to stick the camera in my pocket. Besides, the pictures will turn out awful anyway...

Since your son is visiting, maybe he could take some on his phone or with your camera and upload them for your waiting audience.

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The Kid that's here is NOT the techie; that's the one in VA; this one is even more of a tech doofus than I am! He has no phone with a camera. ( A dear friend of mine keeps offering to teach me how to use a digital camera *ahem*...) I shall try hard to remember the camera next time I go out there to play. I made a louvered attic window and a frame for around the kitchen bay today. I keep finding all these other things Washington wants me to make/ do before I start assembling, but I really want to start assembly, to see how it's all going to go together.

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Now, now holly, you must listen to the house - none of this doing what you want to do - you know how badly that will turn out if you give into it. Stick with the house voice and it will be right in the end. You've helped us all learn this - have patience (I don't but I can preach it - hahahaha)

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Now, now holly, you must listen to the house - none of this doing what you want to do - you know how badly that will turn out if you give into it. Stick with the house voice and it will be right in the end. You've helped us all learn this - have patience (I don't but I can preach it - hahahaha)

Yes, ma'am.

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  • 4 months later...

The house is assembled.  Unlike the Laurel, when I put up a wall for the bathroom I had no room in the hall for the second flight of stairs, so I pulled off all the balusters to recut and make a rail for the hall (this house definitely has an invisible back half!) and today I made a false trapdoor for the attic and primed the front and rear roof supports.  Yesterday I cut off the three-lobed roof thingy on the apexes of those roof supports that I couldn't figure out a use for; I shall probably do the same with the curly jobs at either end of the bottom.  My next trick will be to paper the insides of those supports with the newspaper classifieds and glue some stripwood to make it look more like an attic.  DH came out to show me an adjustment on the bandsaw and when I showed him the picture of the house on the instruction booklet he agreed it's looking much  less toy-like now.  Next I'll start laying the attic floor.

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  • 2 months later...

The interior paint, wallpaper and trims are done, the removal of the lumpy bits has been done, the attic is papered and studded.  I have not yet installed the roof, wanting to finish the exterior first.  I made my own window and front door pediments; again, to lose the toylike appearance of the kit version.  I used the same millwork for the rest of the exterior window frames that I used for the tops of the pediments.  I used the wood Greenleaf rounded shingles to cover the front and rear gables, washing them with a pale yellow pint wash.  I used the same yellow, straight from the can, for the lower, flat part of the pediment.  So far the trim is mostly blue with the yellow highlight on the pediment.  I have masked the doors and windows and I also masked where the eagle motif (also blue) will go between the front upstairs windows.  After the wash on the gable shingles dried I installed the louvered attic window.

I noticed my glue job on the side with the porch didn't "take" so I loaded my toothpick and applied wood glue to the top of the wall and used the tub of spackle atop the tub of wallpaper paste to weight it down.  I masked off around the upper wall on that side and spread spackle for plaster, waited a few minutes and removed the masking tape.  Once the spackle and glue were thoroughly dry and the attic floor weights were removed I laid the house so the side porch was facing up, masked off the upper wall and spackled the lower wall, and within a few minutes I removed the tape.  I have glued the trim and pediment onto the upstairs window on that side.  I'm still waiting for the house to make up its mind on what color it wants its plastered exterior.

The next phase is to mask the two windows on the opposite side and finish plastering the exterior walls.  Then I can think about installing the roof and preparing the foundation, which means cutting more sandpaper strips into bricks.

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The porch roof is primed and painted and the front is plastered (with spackle) and the eagle, window and door trims are on.  The last side is masked and will get spackle next session.  I have peeled a kit box lid for a tin roof for the porch.  The house originally muttered something about screening part of the porch, but lately it seems less interested in that.  I decided to start shingling the roof, so cut my sandpaper into strips and cut 2/3 into the strips at intervals; I used a wood shingle for a template.  I put the furniture books on the workbench shelf.  Tomorrow we're going out to a jazz brunch and then run a few errands on the way home.  If we get back before dark I'll work on that other side and lay a few more courses of shingles on the roof.  I'm omitting the fireplace and chimney; Washington doesn't want it.

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I finished spackling the exterior and glued on the last two window trims and painted the front steps and porch floor.  I also discovered the last two pieces of foundation; a bit of one piece was badly delaminated, so I dug around in the box of unused parts and found another bit of delaminated kit wood and trimmed it to fit and glued it on; so tomorrow I can finish trimming it to fit, sand the pieces and prime them and assemble them onto the rest of the foundation, and then I can begin bricking the foundation.  

Once the foundation is on my next trick will be to mix the color of wash Washington has decided it wants for its exterior (pale rusty orange) and paint it, and spray the tin porch roof pieces.   Once the exterior is painted I can install the shims to fill the bay's gaps and begin assembling the porch.  I need to cut more shingle strips for the roof, but once the roof is shingled I will insatll it.

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I finished spackling the exterior and glued on the last two window trims and painted the front steps and porch floor.  I also discovered the last two pieces of foundation; a bit of one piece was badly delaminated, so I dug around in the box of unused parts and found another bit of delaminated kit wood and trimmed it to fit and glued it on; so tomorrow I can finish trimming it to fit, sand the pieces and prime them and assemble them onto the rest of the foundation, and then I can begin bricking the foundation.  

Once the foundation is on my next trick will be to mix the color of wash Washington has decided it wants for its exterior (pale rusty orange) and paint it, and spray the tin porch roof pieces.   Once the exterior is painted I can install the shims to fill the bay's gaps and begin assembling the porch.  I need to cut more shingle strips for the roof, but once the roof is shingled I will insatll it.

You know that after 5 posts you can put some pictures on!.............................Ok, ok  don't get mad at me........just asking! :borg:

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I started out taking what KathieB calls my c****y pictures, but then I got into the Zone and left the camera in the house..  I take pictures with a disposable point & shoot film camera and then get the film processed with a photo CD when I can find a place with equipment that works.  Not wonderful, but the times I have tried using a digital camera either there is no picture, or the camera turns itself off; I am resigned to the fact that digital cameras hate me.  ne f our members has kindly offered to tech me digital photography and take me camera shopping, net time she visits...

OK, I went out this AM and played until it got so overcast that rain looks immanent (of course, now that I'm indoors and on the computer the sun has decided to ply hide & seek).  The house is a lovely shade of golden brown, the rest of the foundation is glued up and drying; then I can remove the projecting tabs and prime over the bare wood and when the primer dries I can begin to brick.  Then I can install it under the porch floor.

The "tin" porch roof parts got painted metal color and glued onto the porch roof pieces and are lying under flat weights.  It looks as though I can go back through the kit box and find all the rest of the porch parts and decide if I want to use them as is.  The last thing I NEED to do with the inside of the house is to make a rail for the back side of the stairs, then furniture, people and accessories.

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