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New from Indiana building The Garfield


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Hello!  New kit owner/builder here.  I've love miniatures for as long as I can remember, but have just now received my first kit as a birthday gift from my hubby.  I asked for it telling him that I will only build one so I might as well get a big one.  I got The Garfield.  I've read to start small but have also seen people who also start with this build.  I'm also reading that this may or may not be my last build either.  :)

 

I opened the box and labeled all of the pieces (keeping them all attached in the sheets) last night.  I do have a couple of questions.  One about a couple of the small window trim/wide window trim and kitchen/gable post pieces that aren't labeled in the instructions and one about changing the first floor stairs out.  Should I post those here or in the My First Build section?

 

Thanks!

Courtney

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Welcome Courtney, I'm also from Indiana. I started with a large house also (Duran Craft VH-600) and I haven't seen anything that is telling me that I should have started smaller.

 

You will find so much encouragement and help here. I don't think anyone has gotten into anything that the rest of the group couldn't help figure out.

 

Don't forget to share pictures as soon as you can. We love to see everyone builds!

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Welcome to the little family, Courtney.  My first two builds were rather large kits, although not quite as large as the Garfield; I didn't get around to small kits until my third kit.  I have lost count of how mini houses I have built so far, but to me the pleasure is in the building and decorating and then playing with them afterwards, not how many I can build.  Several of them went to other homes, but that's just coincidental.  The main purpose of this hobby is to have fun and relish the pleasure of watching creation take place between your mind and your hands and the pieces of the kit.

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Welcome to the little family, Courtney.  My first two builds were rather large kits, although not quite as large as the Garfield; I didn't get around to small kits until my third kit.  I have lost count of how mini houses I have built so far, but to me the pleasure is in the building and decorating and then playing with them afterwards, not how many I can build.  Several of them went to other homes, but that's just coincidental.  The main purpose of this hobby is to have fun and relish the pleasure of watching creation take place between your mind and your hands and the pieces of the kit.

 

I totally agree.  I don't have any kids yet so this is just for me to enjoy right now.  I can't wait to decorate!  Should I have all of my room decors planned before I start the build or is it ok to wait until the walls are up?  Also, have you changed any staircases?  I haven't done anything yet because I need to order my lighting kit.   I need to get my plan into place.  Thanks for the help in advance!

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I totally agree.  I don't have any kids yet so this is just for me to enjoy right now.  I can't wait to decorate!  Should I have all of my room decors planned before I start the build or is it ok to wait until the walls are up?  Also, have you changed any staircases?  I haven't done anything yet because I need to order my lighting kit.   I need to get my plan into place.  Thanks for the help in advance!

I have learned through building several kits to listen to what they tell me they want.  You'll understand when you try to impose your own ideas without listening.  My advice is to invest in a few rolls of masking or painter's tape and put the main parts of the shell into dry fit first, so you can see what it will look like and which rooms and areas will be impossible to fit your hands into to decorate when built.  You won't need to order your lighting supplies until you have an idea how the house will look and what sorts of lighting it will want.  Remember that your transformer is rated for the number of individual bulbs, not the number of fixtures (some fixtures have more than one bulb).

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*Waves* I think we might have met at the miniature museum. Either way, welcome!

 

My advice would be to make patterns of every wall and floor and label them, so wallpapering is easy. And re-wallpapering is easy, because trust me, you'll probably change your mind along the way. I've changed my mind on my flooring for my Victorianna like four times and I haven't even glued it down yet.

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Havanaholly, I got a lot of the foundation dry fitted tonight. Good to know I don't need to order the lighting right away. I planned on getting the 10 to 12 room lighting kit. So really I need to build first, decide what lights and where, then do the tapewire? I thought I would need it during some of the construction to go up the walls to the second and third floors.

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Welcome, Courtney. I am sure you will love the building process! It is so much fun and such a learning experience. I have tried something new/different with each house - sometimes it worked and other times I had to rip it all out and start again... but I have progressed, slowly, over the last 6 years. I would say, "don't be afraid to make a mistake" - lots of what I have learned is how to fix or camouflage a mistake.Have fun. 

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Havanaholly, I got a lot of the foundation dry fitted tonight. Good to know I don't need to order the lighting right away. I planned on getting the 10 to 12 room lighting kit. So really I need to build first, decide what lights and where, then do the tapewire? I thought I would need it during some of the construction to go up the walls to the second and third floors.

Hi Courtney, and welcome!! I believe you would want to figure out your lighting plan while it was in dry fit (some folks leave the house in dry fit for quite some time while they are visualizing and making their plan), then order your lighting supplies. You are right that you will need to run your tape during construction. I found that out the hard way.

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The purposes for the dry fit are many and include adjusting the tabs and slots for a more perfect fit and "trying on" bashing ideas and making lighting plans and doing lots and lots of tedious prep work (which some of us call "entering The Zone"); it was during the dry fit of the Glencroft that I realized these kit talk to us and tell us what they want.

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Suej, thanks! I never thought about leaving the dry fit up for awhile. It's a really good idea, especially since I don't know decor yet. I will definitely be doing That. That brings me to my next question. Do I dry fit the whole house? I will if I need to, but since it's such a big house will the painter's tape hold the whole shell together?

Havanaholly, I'm learning fast about perfect fit. I had to 'forcefully pursuade' a couple of the slots into place. Not enough pressure to break or crack, just a good tight fit now. I tried to upload a picture of my progress so far, but I can't get it to work from my phone.

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Courtney, if you haven't already done so, I would recommend doing a search of the Garfield in the upper right hand corner search box. You can click on the tabs for "Forum", "Gallery", "Blog" which will change the search box each time and type in Garfield and look under each option. The material available to learn from is almost overwhelming. Another great place is Gina's blog at http://moreminis.blogspot.com/. She is a member here and her blog gives you beginning topics like explaining dry fit, other building terms, and recommended tools list, etc. What I love is that you can select the Garfield from the list of many houses that she has built and blogged each step of the way..with pictures!!  It is "A MUST" for you to check out!! There are many more wonderful blogs that will be mentioned to you in the course of your research.  I chose a smaller house to start with, and that worked best for me, but there are so many who do just what you are doing.  Keep asking questions. I've never experienced anything like the friendship, creativity, and sharing found on Greenleaf. Like someone else has said, be patient with yourself, it is the journey, not the destination:-))  I absolutely love this creative outlet.

To answer your question about dry fitting the whole house: I haven't built a large one yet but I would (based on what I have learned on GL) try to dryfit as much as I could. You might have to get a second pair of hands to hold pieces in place for you to get the right angle. The tabs and slots, even without gluing, really take a lot of pressure off, allowing time to tape. Don't tape the seams, tape more around and across the house.  Personally, I like the blue painters tape better than masking tape.

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You can dry fit sections as you go.  The largest house I tried to build was the Pierce, which had been built with hot glue originally, so I took it entirely apart with a hat gun and totally dry fit before gluing it back together.  I had the first floor glued together (except the towers) and the second floor into dry fit with the built part when we moved, and DH used it to stack "a few" things on that shifted going over a rough railroad crossing, totally destroying the Pierce.  Harbor Freight put bar clamps on sale from time to time, and I used a few of those in addition to the tape for that dry fit.  It really depends on what you need to visualize and how much bashing, if any, the house wants.

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If it's any consolation, my Garfield was begun back in the 1980's and it's not done yet!

... big sigh .....

 

And yes, dry fit, draw sketches, keep notebooks of ideas, use computer photo programs to "color" your build and experiment with different combinations, make detailed electrical drawings so you can troubleshoot later if a problem develops after decorating, basically all manners of trying and testing and experimenting on small bits and bobs to find what you and your Garfield truly want.

 

Above all, don't stress. It's a journey and, unless you make a tight time frame, just let it happen the way it will. You'll have mistakes and oopsies and most will turn into wonderful discoveries before you are done.

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Thank you everyone for the kind words and encouragement!  I'm so excited to finally get started.  I don't have a time frame, so I will definitely be taking my time.  Learning along the way.  Trial and error. 

I'm going to start a notebook/folder of things I want to try and ideas I have so far.  If they work great, if not, I will change direction and see what happens. 

 

Courtney, if you haven't already done so, I would recommend doing a search of the Garfield in the upper right hand corner search box. You can click on the tabs for "Forum", "Gallery", "Blog" which will change the search box each time and type in Garfield and look under each option. The material available to learn from is almost overwhelming. Another great place is Gina's blog at http://moreminis.blogspot.com/. She is a member here and her blog gives you beginning topics like explaining dry fit, other building terms, and recommended tools list, etc. What I love is that you can select the Garfield from the list of many houses that she has built and blogged each step of the way..with pictures!!  It is "A MUST" for you to check out!! There are many more wonderful blogs that will be mentioned to you in the course of your research.  I chose a smaller house to start with, and that worked best for me, but there are so many who do just what you are doing.  Keep asking questions. I've never experienced anything like the friendship, creativity, and sharing found on Greenleaf. Like someone else has said, be patient with yourself, it is the journey, not the destination:-))  I absolutely love this creative outlet.

To answer your question about dry fitting the whole house: I haven't built a large one yet but I would (based on what I have learned on GL) try to dryfit as much as I could. You might have to get a second pair of hands to hold pieces in place for you to get the right angle. The tabs and slots, even without gluing, really take a lot of pressure off, allowing time to tape. Don't tape the seams, tape more around and across the house.  Personally, I like the blue painters tape better than masking tape.

 

I recently found her blog.  I was just reading it last night actually!  I will look around on it some more.  Thanks!

 

 

If it's any consolation, my Garfield was begun back in the 1980's and it's not done yet!

... big sigh .....

 

And yes, dry fit, draw sketches, keep notebooks of ideas, use computer photo programs to "color" your build and experiment with different combinations, make detailed electrical drawings so you can troubleshoot later if a problem develops after decorating, basically all manners of trying and testing and experimenting on small bits and bobs to find what you and your Garfield truly want.

 

Above all, don't stress. It's a journey and, unless you make a tight time frame, just let it happen the way it will. You'll have mistakes and oopsies and most will turn into wonderful discoveries before you are done.

 

The 80's?  I was trying to see how long the Garfield has been available but never found a release date.  I had no idea that it has been around that long!  Are you still building or just changing the interior?

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