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Willowcrest, San Fran, Westville, Beacon Hill and others

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Shingling along.

Almost done with the shingles-- And doing some inside work: trim, patch-up (those interior roof angles are tough! ), wood plank floor for the parlor that still needs a stain:

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A bit of actual color.

It has taken me a while to get this far, bits of dowel and wire and beads and matboard: The purples turned out a bit darker than I'd originally envisioned, but I decided to roll with it and see how it turns out. I need to find some way to add purple accent to the windows and door. Purple framing? Purple window boxes? It wants a light touch, not too purpley...  

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Have you ever...

...seen a Newberg quite like this! Love how that trim is turning out-- the "Barbados", "CiCi", and "Cumbria" grills and brackets from Heritage Laserworks.

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First bit of pretty trim.

Isn't it pretty! This is the "Marissa" gable trim, from Heritage Laserworks: Tried something a bit different: used "chalky finish" spray paint: It doesn't look like a chalk finish to me, at least at this scale, but it isn't nearly as glossy as other white spray paints, which is what I wanted. Think I'll try it on the porch railing too.

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A bit of color. (Not really.)

Here's what a Newberg looks like with siding-- it appears that it's usually adorned with those cardboard scallops and wood cutouts; got (almost all of) the siding on: And here's the first coat of paint: Valspar interior satin, "Moraine": That is nothing to shout about, is it! Hubby stopped by and asked me if I were trying to make the world's most boring dollhouse. I think it looks

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Siding, and special trim.

Got the battery box installed in a matboard creation: Getting the lights installed in the attic; using shiny pony beads: Got the staircase put together; the kit doesn't have risers or a backing, so I made my own from basswood and matboard: This house eats up the siding: I have installed the p

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Working my way up...

Got my matte "tile" sheets in from Miniatures Marketplace at a good price; found tiffany lamp shades there too. That sheet in the kitchen has lilac accents. Mounting the second floor ceiling lights from the underside of the ceilings, so prepared all the papers and cutouts, used my Dremel to groove the underside, installed the 2nd floor (messed up my purple wallpaper there-- will have to trim or patch ), turned the house on its side, laid the wires i

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Walls and ceilings.

Got all the windows sealed, and started to put up walls: I may have misread how to install the grooved side trim on the Left Diagonal Wall (just rechecked-- no, I don't believe I did misread)-- should've dry-fit it, because the Left Front Wall does not fit in place the way it ought. There is a huge gap between the 2nd floor and the Left Diagonal Wall now. I added some matboard to the 2nd floor to fill out that gap; I think that it will not affe

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Window-works.

Got my papers glued on: As per usual, spending extra time on the windows. Decided to go with modification of Kris' matboard windows-- I'll leave out the sashes because they add weakness to the window structures (but mostly because they are difficult enough for me to get straight, speaking from experience, let alone those evil curves ). Fit each casing to each window opening, using Kris' scored matboard trick to do the curves:

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Silly me!

Silly me-- the Robin Carey "Darling House" wasn't a Newberg bash-- it's a Chantilly! Once I realized that (actually it was when I was looking at Mini maniac's shabby Chantilly build), it freed something in my head about whether to flatten the front or not: don't make the Newberg into something it isn't! But that porch roof is going down, for sure. Most of the point of this is to get to use those lovely Heritage Laserworks pieces, after all. Did a ru

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New house kit

(It is nice to get an hr or two on a Friday afternoon! ) New house arrived-- a new build for a cousin; I've not built the Newberg before, but it has alot of familiar elements, both the tab-and-slot, and the frames like the San Fran 555 has. Ed is being vaguely helpful. The kit has this funny stiff paper cut in scallop shapes which is meant to be applied to the gable fronts. 

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99.98%....

...done! I may have one paint touch-up and up to two trim touchups... And that end-table in the parlor is getting gessoed and finished, but I figured I better take some pics while the light is decent, because this pink house will get boxed up and put on the road here soon.

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More bits here and there.

I think I've gotten these rooms finished: Still working the attic, with some matboard creations to hide wire runs: Some work on the exterior: And a little kitchen unit from Kris' recent tutorial; I think that next time I make this, I will use all matboard (no cracks ) instead of basswood. (Also I thought that th

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Bit of fabric-works.

Only after I have applied 1st and 2nd coats of spackle and paint over the front gable trim am I willing to show it! Have been finishing up shingling and making furniture from Kris' tutorials: parlor chairs, bed, and starting on a set of parsons chairs: Also starting on the pelmets for the bay window treatments. Trying not to use terribly serious fabrics, as this is for a little girl af

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Shingles.

But first, a batch of flower-boxes that I whipped up (matboard, and tiny faux flowers from Hobby Lobby): That pedestal-looking thingie on the right goes into the attic to support the roof. Speaking of roof, I've been shingling the roof and gable (octagon and fishscale shingles from Ernie's; I guess I was expecting the really flat shingles that often come with the Greenleaf kits, but that's not what these are (Houseworks

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Roof-works.

Got that porch railing finished up (except for touchups): Glued the three left roof pieces together as a unit, then glued onto 3rd floor: Here I am tidying up the battery box and its matboard cover, into which the wires will be stuffed: The right roof pieces, glued together (but not glued onto the left roof assembly yet). &#

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Skin of my teeth...

Got those spindles and posts painted up this afternoon, like soldiers in rows: This shows the pins in the undersides of the spindles, and toothpicks for the newel posts: I decided to install the railing after all the posts were in, so as to make it easier to cut to fit. Nearing the end of the line, and (after searching about for a while and thinking about how much I'd used)-- four pieces of Housework

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Toodling along...

Another time-consuming bit for the past while-- 1st floor porch railing: That little guy in the lower right is my replacement Hagen-Renaker bully, for the one which somebody *cough- hubby* broke while dusting or messing about; this little guy will stay in here with me safe from leg-breakers. I love Hagen-Renaker miniatures-- but the realistic ones, not the cartoon-y ones.

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Well...

...I've seen worse first-coats of paint. First coat always looks the worst though. This is Valspar interior satin, a tint-match to the Valspar "Pristine Petal" that I used on my first pink Tennyson.

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Bit of siding.

Was not looking forward to splicing wires-- found my last battery pack with long wires: Wish I could find more of them-- got them off Amazon a couple years back. Got rooms wired up, and staircase installed: Started on some siding: Starting to get there!

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Backwards and forwards.

Dry-fit of staircase and landing railing looks good: Added a matboard back to staircase-- matboard is flexible enough that it went with the curve. Painted, sanded, repainted, spackled, repainted, gessoed staircase and it still looked terrible. Decided to rip off those photo-corners and wallpaper the thing, with matboard trim. Much better (after cutting out mirror image of wallpaper trace that I actually needed ):

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