Day 18 -- Substantial Pride Intermingled with Complete Panic

Too impatient to wait for help, I set the house on the foundation and glued it on. It's not perfectly centered, but I suspect, were it not for confessing it here, no one would ever know.

Glued on the porch floor.
Weighed everything down and waited for the glue to dry.
Taped trim stock on the outside of the house for the balcony roof to balance on (I'm not sure, but I suspect that trim was only meant for this temporary use and there was no need to paint it).
Using the glued together porch railing as a guide, marked where the posts go and glued them. Then re-glued the entire porch railing which fell apart when I moved it. grrr.
Glued on the porch roof (tape, tape, tape) and the porch railing (after marking where the top was to get glued to the porch posts).
Tape, tape, tape.
Moved those trim guides to the balcony so the balcony roof could rest on it while the glue dried.
On goes the porch roof.
With the house on its back, glued the facia on the balcony. More tape. More waiting for the glue to dry. In fact, most of today was spent waiting for glue to dry.
And now for the panic. Glued the small bits onto the front roof. The bits which I had painted white, although they will be covered with shingles. (Panic in a minute.)

Curious as to why it was necessary for any reason but convenient packaging for these little pieces not to be cut with the roof when it was created. Which would have saved me some heartache.

Glued the back eaves onto the back roof.
Now for the panic. The roof is supposed to fit snug onto the top floor, with those little pieces hugging the sides of the house, not sitting on top.

Intended to sent a panicked email to my mentor at the dollhouse store asking for advice.

Carefully marked shingle lines on the front and back roofs. I was then supposed to set the roofs onto the house, mark where they over hanged the house and paint to the marking. Realized that I had marked the shingles on the wrong side of the back roof. Decided to just paint the whole blessed thing and will remark the other side when the paint dries.
At this point I realized that those little front eaves weren't squares, but rectangles, so I pried them apart, the glue having not yet dried, painted them on the underside to match the blue on the underside of the front (which will be the ceiling on the upper floor) and, when that paint dries, will re-glue. Of course, that means I need to re-draw all the shingle lines.

Figured I needed something positive to end the day, so I carefully set the front roof on just to see what it looked like.

I'm pleased.

Day 17 -- Details, Details

Uncharacteristically, I read ahead in the instructions and realized that I was a lot closer to some detail work which would require little pieces be painted. This in spite of my own rules about detailing every piece beforehand with the color of every surface. So, parts of the porch details had to be painted white (on more than one surface, and so far I've only done one):

Trim pieces for the porch got two coats of blue -- on only one side, so they're not done either:

Side pieces for the trim on the roof, which only get one side painted (small miracles are always appreciated):

And a gazillion trim pieces which need multiple sides painted (not yet, but these are two-coated):

Second coat on all the porch and balcony pieces, plus sides:

Finished painting the door panel:

Put the door back together and leaned it up against the house just to see how it looks -- I like it!

Day 16 -- It looks like a dollhouse

I removed all the tape and put the windows in, not glued -- just to ensure they fit and to see what they look like. Cool:

Then I painted the strips on the back (floors and sides) that I forgot to do until the last minute on the last house. I was doing it slowly and painstakingly with a paint brush until Mike said, "Why not use the roller?" Why not indeed?

Time to glue the porch railing together, which involved the use of four hands, which I didn't have. The railings sit on shingles, with dowels separating them from the bottom so that they fit up from the floor and centered on the posts:

Glued the ball thingie on the post:

While that glue set, I glued in the octagonal windows in the dormers (yellow faces outside, blue faces inside:

Decided to paint the outside of the door blue. Took it off the little hinge, which I taped to the floor of the dollhouse because it's so tiny, it would be easy to lose. It will need another coat:

Then glued the rest of the porch railing together:

The next big step is to glue on the foundation, which I will try to do next, but with Mike's help. I put the house on top to check the fit first. The porch needs to sit on the edge which resulted in a not quite square fit. One side of the house is further in from the edge of the foundation that the other:

I went to the dollhouse store to see if this is the case with the model put together there. Sadly, for my peace of mind, hers fit perfectly. Mike is going to ponder it with me to figure out either where I went wrong or what to do about it. I can't see where I could have made a mistake, although this isn't a biggie.

I also painted porch and balcony pieces white (no pictures) and will do more of that next.

Day 15 -- Considerable Progress

The plan was to take advantage of Mike as he was home all day and awake after his return from Singapore, but I ran out of juice before I needed his help.

With the house on its back:

Glue and tape the bay floors:

Glue and tape the bay sides:

Although RealGoodToys, the manufacturer, takes deserved pride in the precision of its pieces, the sides only fit reasonably well. It wasn't possible to get all the pieces precisely lined up, so I did the best I could.

Then the porch floor got taped into place but not glued, just to ensure that it fit, which was good because I forgot to paint it:

Then, while the glue dried, I figured I could paint the remaining things that require white. But, when I went through the unassembled pieces, I realized that I had the upper floor ceilings to do, which I wanted to piant blue. So I poured what turned out to be far too much paint into the roller bin and, rather than either try to put it back in the can or (Horrors!) throw it away, I ended up using it to paint all the (##$@%@$ing) trim on the windows. Which was a whole lot and resulted in some shaky fingers. Touch-ups will be required.

Took off all the tape from the house, which appears stable:

Did the touch-up work on the foundation which gets glued on tomorrow, after painting all the remaining white pieces I never did get to. That's where Mike will come in handy, as this sucker is heavy.

I also pread out the 880+ shingles on racks for the final drying:

Day 14 -- Construction!

The instructions suggest that this is the time for extra hands. Extra nerves would help, too.

First, tape together two room dividers to use as a stand to steady everything (as if the author of the instructions knew that no one actually as four hands at her disposal):

Line up and double (triple!) check that the floors' orientation is correct:

Spread glue in the grooves on one side:

Set the floors into the grooves on the side and 'anchor' them to the stand of room partitions:

Glue on the other side:

Throughout this process, the instructions continually point out the need to assure that edges are completely lined up. What they fail to mention is that lining up one edge inevitably causes another to pop out. I need a wife!

Then move the house so it hangs over the edge of the table and glue on the base floor, taping the bejessus out of it:

Turn the house onto its back (the open end) for the next operation.

Line up the left front, test, test, test and then glue and tape:

Glue and tape the short right side:

At this point, the instructions casually say, "Stand the house upright." Yeah. What they should say is, "Stand the house upright and re-glue, re-align and re-tape everything."

And weights, check everything and walk away to let the glue dry:

Rather than do any more painting, I figured my nerves were shot enough for the day.