Mike and Robin

Thank you for the responses. Mike

Has anyone got experience of building the above kit. We purchased it on ebay some years ago, it has furniture kits included. We have not opened the box yet but it appears to be vintage 1978 era from what information we can find through Google. Its not a name we come across very often. Not sure if the company still exists. Its about 4th on our list of kits to construct. Thanks Mike

The paint are pots of Sherwin Williams samples. Only about $3 on special.

Still cannot get the hang of adding pics to album. If anyone knows how to delete duplicates please let me know. Thanks Mike

I will try and add photos to our album this week. We received the additional walls, windows and doors from Laser Dollshouse Design. Leonard is a really nice guy to deal with and sent us a generous package of parts. We will be able to have doors between rooms (which the original did not have). We will be adding the extra bathroom and mud room on the side and extending the second floor deck along the side above the mudroom. The main room on the top floor has a large uninteresting exterior wall over the front porch so we hope to add French doors (just purchased) and a small balcony.We may have enough wood to add a garage on carport on the opposite end. I have a 1:12 scale original British Mini kit by Tamiya on the work bench which would look nice in the garage.. The whole house has be taken down to the foundation soon for interior finishing and gluing. The current table is an old office desk fitted with castors. We will be buying a sheet of 1/2 inch ply to put under the house to offset the slight sag in the desk. It will extend the length of the building base to accommodate the extra extension on both sides and a small garden area. Painting is ongoing, one dormer has just about been completed inside and out and window installed. Second identical dormer is being painted and will be completed this week I hope. Using a Dremel sander to take off the laser burn on the outside edge of windows and walls so that the paint gives a better cover. To give some idea of the work, there are 25 windows in the kit, each with interior and exterior frames to be prepped and painted. Cannot paint the interior frames until we know the color schemes of each room but the exterior windows are all the same color. We are taking out the window panes on the interior frames. The double windows looked odd. You will see what I mean in the photos. Wiring kit arrived last week. That will be a challenge. Oh, almost forgot. We are removing the chimney. Its not a good design and the location is about the center of the top main room, not over the edge of a wall where you would expect a fireplace to be. More later. Mike

I will be starting an Album of this build as its better having the photos there. Is it better to have the construction discussion on this forum or does it work to make comments on the album pics. No experience doing this before. Robin and I have got our final design ideas in place. For example there will be a new room added where the lower deck was. We will have plenty of wall material available as we are replacing some interior walls and not using others. More on that later. There will also be a third floor opening with French doors and a small balcony in the front below the highest roof line. Also doing some window modifications. Once again more on that as we go. For now I'm doing as much external painting a I can while the house is standing. Also having to sand off much of the Laser burn on the edges of windows, floors and roof lines. Please jump in with observations, ideas etc. Mike

Thanks for the input Sable. We are always appreciative of another set of eyes catching things we might miss. I think you are talking about the "slate tiles". I went down and took a look. You are right, rows two and above lay flat but that first row need a little more height for the second row to lay flat. Hmmmmm. Would the problem be solved with a thin strip of trim along the roof edge painted grey. Not sure how to get a half tile. I'm going to check to see if this is the same on all sections regardless of pitch (slope?) of the roof. Never noticed this issue laying individual shingles on the Duracraft house. (that's our Garfield in the background. The cause of our hobby getting out of control. We purchased it fully built and furnished for $300. It is need of some TLC. Its probably 15 years old. We have had it for about 6 years.)

We've started painting. The one story tower is going to get its roof raised and the second floor deck will wrap around. We have asked the manufacturer to provide us with another set of railings for the upper deck. Just have to move the roof line up. The roof of the ground floor deck is already in place to be the floor of the second floor deck. Just have to move the roof lines up. There is a sample of the grey slate look roof in place but not glued. Second photo shows the roof removed ready to take the new deck

Not using real slate tiles although that sounds like a great idea. We are just painting the wooding shakes provided by the manufacturer. We are beginners and unfortunately are not true artisans but we are learning quickly. We are getting good at following kit instructions and starting to add our own creative touches. This is #2 for us and will be our first to have lighting. That's going to be a new adventure. Maybe #3 will be a true kit bash. Each one will be a new challenge. The house you see in the background was a rescue. Learned a lot by repainting, repairing doors, replacing floors etc.

This our latest build. Its a slot and tab construction so as soon as it arrived 2 years ago we did a dry build. Did not touch it until a couple of weeks ago when we decided to complete the project. I'll post more pictures as we make progress. So far we have decided to do Banana Cream exterior wall and Cherry Jubillee trim with slate grey tiles.

New Build