someonesDad

Thanks again to everyone for the great suggestions. I am very appreciative of the warm welcome and received wisdom. It looks like there are a few ideas for me to check out on my spare shingles. Holly, thanks for explaining the forums' image policy. I hope I didn't post more images in this thread than I should have.

Hi again to everyone who has replied, and thanks for the thoughtful (and quick!) responses. It doesn't sound like anyone is too optimistic that bleaching the shingles will return them to some comparable base for staining. I will look into painting options as well as darker stains to see how they look over the various shades on the roof. You can see my testing board set up in the lower left base of the house. Tracy, the house was purchased in Norwalk, CT in late 1977, early 1978. I don't know enough about the dollhouse market past or present to know if a Connecticut shop would have sold houses from a Georgian builder back in the days before the internet. I have no further information about the provenance, and my mother doesn't remember the manufacturer. That said, I looked at the Mt. Vernon in your albums, and agree that there are some strong resemblances. Beyond the trim and base, I have a pair of virtually identical chimneys that are not in the original picture. Anyway, if they're not from the same creator, they certainly seem to have come from like-minded people. As to any non-standard features, I was always under the impression that my carpenter grandfather added his own touches to the original shell (for example a nice set of casters under the base, dental moulding, and possibly the extensions under the bay windows?), but at the time the house was purchased and worked on I didn't really pay too much attention to my younger sister's dollhouse. I had assumed the he had created the chimneys as well, but they sure look like the ones in your gallery. Thanks again to everyone for the advice.

Greetings. I am new both to the forums and to the world of dollhouses, and am hoping for some guidance from those of you who know so much more than I. Quick setup story: as shown in the attached photo, I am helping to complete an unfinished dollhouse for my daughter. This particular house was purchased by my mother in 1978 with the intention of building it for my sister. My grandfather was a carpenter and helped with much of the trim work etc. For a variety of reasons, they never completed work on the house, and it sat in storage for 40 years. Until now. For my daughter's 12th birthday, my wife and I decided to complete the house (which had by now come to us). And now on to my question. In the photo below, there are basically 2 colors of all of the finishing materials (clapboard sheets & roof shingles). The darker versions were installed back in 78, and the lighter ones are the work we have done over the last couple of weeks. The clapboard will be painted, so the color difference is not an issue; the shingles however will be stained (or otherwise darkened... we are hoping to have an aged cedar roof look in the end results). All of the shingle are from the same era, the lighter ones have just been opened recently, the darker ones have 40 years of aging. The Boston lap and edges on the main roof are pieces I cut from basswood L-molding, so they are not the same material as the rest. Does anyone have any advice as to how to equalize the colors so as to blend the old & new work? Again, the desired end result is the gray color of aged shake roofs. I have experimented a bit with the steel wool and vinegar solution and think the silvery gray that produces is viable, however the different starting shades produce different end results. I'd love to darken the newly applied shingles to match the vintage work, but am assuming that bleaching back the old stuff is probably more realistic. Am I mistaken? Thanks in advance for any advice you can share with me. Chris p.s.: if it is useful to know, the shingles are Houseworks LTD Dollhouse Roofing Shingles. The packets we have from the 70s are #7004 and contain 100 shingles, I just purchased a bag of 1,000 of the closest current version I could find, #7104 to complete the remaining lower roof. p.p.s.: I'm also interested in any staining/finishing tips for the grey shake roof we are hoping for.