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Before I get started good on this blog, let me go ahead and apologize for the number of pictures. This house was done 90% by Jimmy, and I had only minimal input, mostly regarding paint mixing and things like that, but I did do the wallpapering. Jimmy had a great time not only building this house, but he picked out all of the decorations, landscaping, and all that you see. The color choices are his as well. When he first began this house, he was like a little kid in a candy store! He was very excited about it, and was even more excited that he got to "break" things--so be sure and watch for the broken windows too. Now, here's the front of the house. And here are the sides of the house. And now, I'll show you the closeups of some details outside. On the roof, you will note various critters, but also note the broken shingles as well. There are also "broken" bricks on the chimney. All of the windows in the house are broken. Jimmy also created some graves, but we are having a lot of trouble keeping Dean and Lisa in their graves! They know Halloween is right around the corner, and they are ready to come out and haunt! Of course the front door is broken, and the porch railing is broken as well. See that big ugly snake? He has me a little worried ... Now for the inside of the house. Here's an overall back view of the house. Room by room, here's the livingroom. Please note the broken window, the broken sofa, the skeleton reclining on the sofa. And oh yes, Jimmy had to break the stairs too! Come on into the kitchen! We have another resident skeleton sitting at the table. Not sure if he is thinking about playing cards, or what. Let's go upstairs, shall we? First we have the green room, which has Jimmy's bed that he made and then had the springs hanging out of the mattress. Jimmy painted the upstairs, and carpeted it. You can also see the moss hanging down from the hole in the roof. Last is the pink room. Big ugly spider in that room! Yuck! And the mummy! And the carpet is filthy and looks like it has burn marks in it (it does). Again, Jimmy painted, carpeted and decorated. Compliments of LPCullen

Jimmy wanted me to wallpaper the downstairs rooms, since he has great plans for the wallpaper. Of course, that consists of tearing up the wallpaper ... and other things ... The downstairs rooms were very easy to wallpaper, and I like the wall that the spackled ceiling looks with the wallpaper. Jimmy decided he would finish spackling the upstairs rooms. Got impatient, couldn't wait on me, which suits me fine since I didn't like spackling. I'm not sure he liked spackling either, since he told me I left him the "hard" parts ... did not, he just didn't wait for me to finish!Compliments of LPCullen

Well now, I have come and I have seen and I have spackled! Kinda like -- frosting a cake! I spackled the ceilings (and yes, it's upside down) of the first floor rooms, and then I spackled one area of the upstairs rooms. The upstairs rooms are to be entirely spackled, since I don't really want to wallpaper them, LOL!And, I have discovered that I do not like spackling and should stick to wallpapering, which is MUCH easier for me!Compliments of LPCullen

Jimmy has continued with the white washing of his trim, and has also added some black marks on the trim ... just because. I'm not sure why, but I like it.He also bricked his chimney, and then decided to "knock some of the bricks out".He then began putting his holes in his roof. He has further plans for that, but I am not allowed to disclose them ... he says it's a surprise.Compliments of LPCullen

Jimmy has begun adding some trim to his house, and creating his own version of "architectural detailing".He has sort of white washed the railings, and then he decided to "break" some of the railings, to give it a more run down appearance I guess. He also cut some of the porch "planks" and made them stand up ...Now, we seem to be running into a little problem here. Hubby seems to think that because he is doing this house with barely any input from me that he is entitled to full use of ALL (and there are many) of my paint brushes. That wouldn't be such a problem, but he usually ends up using the one that I need! GGRRRRR!Compliments of LPCullen

Jimmy has begun building the furniture, and is currently building the kitchen table and the bed.First, he built the bed. Then he wanted a mattress in the bed, so he used some foam that we had laying around where I had padded some RW chairs and used that as a mattress. He rubbed the mattress into the dirt outside to make it dirty looking. He then used springs out of a lock and pushed the springs down into the mattress using the exacto knife, so now the bed has springs poking out of it.Then he began building the kitchen table. He broke the corner off the table to make it look old and used. He then made the legs look crooked to make the table look "wore out" and rickety.Jimmy said to tell all of you that if you want to build furniture this way, be sure to have plenty of booze on hand so you can see crooked, LOL! I guess I should say that you probably should drink the booze in order to see crooked ...Compliments of LPCullen

Time to begin aging the structure. I first made a light gray colorwash, and put that on the house. Jimmy wasn't happy with that color and wanted me to add some dark blue to it. He said it was too plain and needed more color. So I added some dark blue, put a little on the house, and Jimmy still wasn't happy. So I added more dark blue until I had a color that we were both happy with. I put about two coats of the color wash on the house.Jimmy then put the roof on the house. He said the roof is very simple, and consists of only four boards. Compliments of LPCullen

First, Jimmy drew some lines on the house. He wanted the house to appear that it was made out of boards. For the exterior of the house, he used a piece of siding from another house as a guide and drew some lines using a pencil.Then Jimmy used a smaller board to draw lines on the first floor room floors, and also on the front porch. Now it's my turn, and I wanted to make sure that the wood was sealed and wouldn't warp when I got ready to do some color washing to age the house, so the first thing I did was stain the house on the exterior, for the simple reason that Minwax stain is also a sealer. Plus, the stain of the wood added to the tone of the color wash, or so I thought.Compliments of LPCullen

Jimmy begins construction of the Haunted House. He put the side pieces to the floors, and then weighted them down using paint cans until they were dry. He said it was easier to do it this way because there are no notches for the front walls so you needed something stable to glue them to--hence the laying of it on the floor like that until dry.Then Jimmy begins putting the front of the house on. He says this is a real simple little house to build, and quite fun.The base structure is now complete, and we will now work on the exterior of the house.Compliments of LPCullen