Brainstorm with me- foundations

[mom2blu]

So I'm renovating a Beacon Hill and many of the foundation wooden pieces have broken off over the years, and I'm pretty sure they're not in the bag of parts the previous owner gave me. I have been thinking of doing a stone foundation, possibly then carrying the stonework up the bay windows. So I was going to cut new strips of wood, which I'm sure are a pain in the butt, and then doing perhaps egg carton stones on them.

BUT

I remembered years ago when I did minis I used green floral foam and carved a stone garden. I'm wondering if I could do that for the foundation??!?! I could make it go underneath the house too, it doesn't have to be flush against the edges. (make sense?)

Or I could........

[-defunct account-]

Just to be clear, when you say green floral foam do you mean Oasis? My personal opinion would be against that if so, because it's not very sturdy stuff. What about using pink builders foam? It's inexpensive and available at most hardware stores. You could use the green stuff around that and carve it out, but the pink foam would give you a more sturdy base.

My BH is pretty heavy, especially when it's full of furnishings.

[fov]

I recently did an egg carton stone foundation on a big house and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm not sure how durable it'll be over time, but for now at least it looks nice and it's lightweight (this was a very heavy house to begin with!) There are pictures here.

I guess you would still need to replace the foundation pieces, though.

[LindaC]

fov, the rock work is fantastic. great job. I did brick with stryofoam trays and egg cartons using lightweight spackle for grouting. Yours is much neater than mine. nice.

[mom2blu]

Just to be clear, when you say green floral foam do you mean Oasis? My personal opinion would be against that if so, because it's not very sturdy stuff. What about using pink builders foam? It's inexpensive and available at most hardware stores. You could use the green stuff around that and carve it out, but the pink foam would give you a more sturdy base.

My BH is pretty heavy, especially when it's full of furnishings.

In the past it was oasis, but I was thinking builder foam (which is a sheet right? which would produce a solid slab of foundation) and forgot to suggest the idea.

[havanaholly]

I would suggest builder's foam, you can "carve" your stones into it. If you do cut new wood foundation pieces, you can also prime it and then spread spackling compound over it and carve your stones into that.

[Gonzo]

Whatever you do, you just want to make sure the foundation is strong enough to support your build. You could always cut wood pieces and then use spackle, cartons, foam or whatever you wanted to do for the base.

Or, in the case of the "back-to backs" ... you could build an entire basement

[pdlnpeabody]

Although it isn't standard for kit houses, I would recommend a plywood base for any house with two 1" x 2" runners underneath for easy pick-up. I used green florist foam for the jacuzzi tub I just built last week, but would recommend builder's foam if its available. Regardless of wich type you use, in the themepark building industry, they're meant to serve as a temporary "scaffold" to shape and cover in fiberglass. I use epoxy for the hard, permanent form and follow up with spackle or sculpting putty for the final texture.

[fov]

Thanks, Linda! It was so much fun, I'm thinking about starting the 1/2" Bungalow and might do the same type of foundation on that...