So I had an original blog about the Coventry, deleted it because I thought I was going to sell the kit, ended up keeping the kit, and am now putting it together and going back to blogging about it!!!

So I bought my kit off of Ebay, and if I could recommend anything to anyone, I wouldn't suggest doing this. I think that you get a great deal, but what you are buying (most of the time) is seconds or something that might have been sitting in wet storage for a while...wet + wood = crap!

My wood is crap...and I'm very angry about it, but I suppose I'll get over it!!!

So back to the building of it...

Day 1 -

I read over the warm-up sheet, and then the direction sheet, I like to read a step ahead of myself so I know what will be coming up, and then I started. I did the very first step in the directions, I punched out all the pieces that the first step called for, labeled them with a red pencil and then sanded them a little bit. I really just sanded enough to get the rough edges away, and make everything "more" smooth than it was. It's not difficult to punch out the pieces, you can take a small razor and cut along the edges if necessary to help pop them out.

After I got all the pieces ready I did the first dry fit. Following the directions, I put each piece together to assemble the main floor and second floor/attic/loft. I will say a couple of things about the directions...the kitchen wall, (the small wall off the center wall), you really need to bang into place, I had to cut the tabs on the center wall open a bit to get it to fit, but made it work. The kitchen wall, (that the bay is on) is tough to do too. I put the window sill through the window as it called, and then as we were sliding it straight, the sill almost broke...(good thing for glue), you have to use a little force, but not too much.

The back walls went on a little easier, for me, I put the two pieces together first, and then attached to the house, I had to round out/bend the wood a little bit to make it go into place, but it worked. After that, the house body was done for now.

Day 2 -

Today, after dreaming about the house all night...I went through some of my supplies and found some things that I want to use to change the house. Of course, this meant taking it apart, that was not an easy task. I got the first floor, the small kitchen wall and the center wall apart, so the second floor and two supporting walls remained in tact, I put them gently on the floor to rest for a bit.

I took two Housework doors, (the Nubuck and the Single French) and cut out the patterns on the back of the packaging. I used the patterns and traced them out in red pencil on the wood of the center wall. I put the Nubuck door in place of the front door, (cutting the wood more toward the center than the front of the house) and put the Single French as the door leading into the side room on the first floor, (again cutting the wood more toward the center than the back).

The next thing I did was decide that the Coventry needed a staircase. Using a staircase kit from Houseworks we traced a box onto the second floor and cut it out as the opening/landing. We then cut the staircase in half and are going to use it to create an L shape with a landing going down to the first floor.

We then put the house back together, this time using masking tape to tape everything tight and secure.

Day 3 -

Today I glued the house together. It was already taped together, so using the tape I glued all the joints. I used wood glue on anything that will be the inside of the house, and white tacky glue on the outside of the house, figuring that the white glue dries clearer to paint over.

I tipped the house upside down and glued it in place there too, then spun it around and around on its sides to glue everything together. I tried to wipe up as much excess glue as possible so there was less and less dripping and smearing, then just let it sit and dry.

Day 4 -

Today I spent the day punching and sanding!!! I've punched everything out of the kit, with the exception of the furniture. I will not be using the furniture for this kit, but rather buying my own, so I put all of that aside. I did punch out the window box and the porch swing, just in case...

I sanded everything down with both a nail file and standard fine sandpaper. I put everything into piles according to what part of the house it belongs to. Tomorrow I have to go to the craft store to pick up primer, paints, paint brushes and such, so that's all the work for today.