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The Orchid is DONE!


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The house, not the interior! Woohoo! I still have a lot of furniture making and redoing before the interior is furnished, but I'm really excited that the house is done! It took me about a year, working on days off and evenings. I've had a lot of fun with the build, and maybe someday I'd do another one. I'll add some new pictures to my album soon, but just wanted to share what I did and didn't do.

What I added:

1x2's under the foundation. This helped with stability a LOT, and hardly adds anything to the weight. Totally worth it.

A whole lot of strip wood, to almost everything. I used a lot of 1/8x1/16, and a few other sizes and thicknesses. I used it for the siding, railings to the porch and upstairs landing, doorways, windows, gingerbread, the roof, etc. Anywhere there was a weird gap or if things just looked too flat. I used a chair rail molding to trim out the gable interior. I couldn't get a nice crisp edge on the wall, so the little lip on the chair rail worked well to wrap around that corner. I also used some 1/4" square dowels to reinforce under the porch steps. I used scraps of door casing and crown to make the brackets for the bay and window casings.

I added a second upstairs wall. My kit came missing a few pieces, so I had an extra wall in the replacement sheet they sent. I made a wee tiny hallway for the stair landing. It seems weird to have such a tiny space, but it would have been unlikely for the tiny owners to have such a huge bedroom, and I felt like I HAD to have the walls meet at the corners of the gable. It makes all three rooms upstairs very, very small, but it makes it symmetrical, which makes me happy. I also wanted to keep the stair landing trim. Just like the porch railings, it's a classic Gothic Revival element, so it had to stay. I did add a lot of trim to it, though.  

I made the leaded glass windows for the gable, dormers and front door. I used lead golf tape and Gallery Glass paint, clear on the windows and frosted for the door.

I added an egg carton foundation. I have never worked with the egg carton before, but I'm hooked! It turned out much, much better than I would have expected, it was easy, and it was free!

What I left off:

The roof gussets. In theory, these are added for stability of the roof, but I just used good wood glue and made sure the pieces all fit together well, and it's fine.

The stairs. This house is just too tiny for stairs.

The eave trim, ridge trim and finials. I used 1/2" strip wood stained to match the shingles for the ridge trim, and painted 1/8" strip for the edges of the roof.

Window sheets. These were OK, but looking at photos of old Gothic Revival houses, I kept seeing the two over two windows, so I added 1/8" strip mullions instead.   

If I build another one:  

I would use a pre-made bay window. It would cost almost as much as the whole kit, but would be worth every penny. I fiddled with that stupid bay for HOURS, and I'm still not thrilled with it. I could never get the pieces to fit really well, and when I finally thought I was ready to glue it together, I realized I still had to trim everything down again. And sand. And paint. Again...Bah! 

I installed the bottom floor dividing wall before I had trimmed out the doorway. It still turned out fine, but would have been much, much easier if I had done that before I glued it in.

I would use the square end of the shingles next time. I griped and moaned about those shingles the whole way, and in the end, I'm really happy with the roof, but using the square end would have made a few of the angles easier to cut, and I think would have looked more realistic. Oh, and it pays to keep all of the trimmings from the shingles to fill in all of the tiny gaps. I ended up with 48 whole shingles at the end...a tiny handful and I was worried that I would run out, and that's after recutting every usable scrap of wood that I could.

I didn't have a final plan for the ridge trim when I measured the roof and drew the guidelines. My top row of shingles is just a hair longer than the rest, and that could have been avoided if I had the ridge trim to factor in before I started.    

 

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Thanks Kathi! I'm almost a little sad that it's done, but I have lots of furniture and accessories to work on, so the fun continues!

It's funny how the house evolved as I built it. I didn't start out with a firm plan for a lot of things, but it seemed like waiting for the next day off to build, or waiting for things to dry always gave me some time to think about the next step.

I started the Chrysnbon bathroom kit. Can't decide if the tub needs to be white or copper. Copper would be neat with the wall and tile color, but I don't know if I could pull off a convincing finish. I'm also going to make a regular tank for the toilet...or not! LOL!  

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I know what you mean about feeling a little sad when a house is done. It's like a book, we can't wait to see the ending, (or finished product), but when we are done, it leaves us with a sad feeling. It's good that you still have the furniture and accessories to work on though, so you aren't completely finished with it!

I've made the Chrysnbon bathroom, it's a really nice kit. The copper would be beautiful if you can pull it off. I guess you'd have to practice on some other plastic item, maybe a white bleach bottle??? to see what works and what doesn't!

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You did a lovely job with it! :) 

I build in 1:24 mostly and learned to reinforce the foundations like you describe. It makes a huge difference with stability and as you said, adds negligible weight. 

I asked this question in the comment section of one of your photos, but don't know if you'll see it. Did you use milled board and batten sheets? I just discovered these and have thought about trying them on the next house that I want to do that as an exterior treatment. When I did Maus Haus I did the board and batten using trim pieces, cutting it all. I like the idea of the milled sheets (they will further reinforce the walls) but I was wondering how easy it is to work with.

I meant to add, I don't feel like they are ever really done. It seems like I'm always adding or changing out some little thing on my houses....it's part of the fun! :) 

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Debora, I just used strip wood and a level. I thought of using the milled sheets, but there was just too much other stuff to work around.

Adding reinforcement to the foundation was key to keeping the bottom floor from sagging and gave me something to glue to back foundation to.  If I build another house that's constructed like that, I'd do it again. I wasn't planning to reinforce the porch steps, but they kept falling apart!   

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I made the tank yesterday. A small block of balsa with a tank lid made of a strip of basswood. I sanded the front edges of the tank to make it a little more rounded, then glued the lid on. Sanded and sanded and sanded, then a few coats of gesso. I'm going to spray paint it gloss white, but not sure yet if I can get the wood to look like porcelain. It's going in the back corner of the bathroom, so it's not that big of a deal.

I cut the pipe straight off, about a half inch higher than the toilet rim, and made a hole in the bottom of the wooden tank. It's still going to make the whole thing top heavy, so I may have to throw a few pennies into the toilet bowl.  It was too windy to spray paint, but I'll take some pics when I get it painted.  

I can't find an acceptable copper paint, then browsing the Rustoleum site, decided that "Slate Blue" would be the perfect color for the tub. What makes it even more perfect is that specific color is not available anywhere in my town...I'll make a few stops later this week and see if I can find it, but I may have to improvise. Maybe craft paint top coated with clear gloss spray? Not willing to pay $10 to ship a can of spray paint. I seem to have a habit of finding just the perfect thing, then finding out it's discontinued, unavailable, etc. Happens all the time.

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I made an over-the-top sculpted late 19th century commode stool so I mounted the tank high on the wall:

gallery_8_305_112639.jpg

Sorry for the picture quality, I'm a technological cretin and digital cameras usually turn themselves off in my hands; our phone only makes calls and occasionally receives txts to which we are unable to reply.

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Elizabeth, you can see pictures of the house in my album. Click on my name, then "albums." I'm working on all of the interior bits and pieces, which is fun.

Still no spray paint to be found...OTOH, I  had the idea of a tub with a shiny white interior and rim, and a flat finish exterior. Usually plain craft paint just scrapes right off of the plastic, though. Wonder if it would stick better with a primer? Doh!

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1 hour ago, stickyfingers said:

Elizabeth, you can see pictures of the house in my album. Click on my name, then "albums." I'm working on all of the interior bits and pieces, which is fun.

Still no spray paint to be found...OTOH, I  had the idea of a tub with a shiny white interior and rim, and a flat finish exterior. Usually plain craft paint just scrapes right off of the plastic, though. Wonder if it would stick better with a primer? Doh!

Testers paints for models would work on the Chrysnbon kits, they are made for that type of plastic. I do use the craft paints on mine, then seal them, and they seem to be okay, but that's probably because I'm not hard on them. I wouldn't do them that way if they were going to be played with.

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When I painted all the Chrysnbon cookware I first hit it with gray flat Rustoleum spray primer, since my personal experience with acrylic paint was that it pops or rubs off if I looked at it crooked!  I also used the Rustoleum spray copper metallic paint and was quite pleased with the results.

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That's a good idea about the Rustoleum primer Holly. I do use an oil based stain to stain the Chrysnbon "wood", and it seems to work quite well. The stain was used on the Chrysnbon stuff in my Orchid, and turned it from that ugly light brown into a rich deep brown and accented the grain in the plastic.

gallery_2568_3514_64526.jpg

My Orchid is a ladies' Emporium and tea room. I built it because I was playing around with dishes, perfume bottles and other accessories for ladies. Whenever I make fancy stuff that I don't have a place for in my other houses, I put it in the Ladies' Emporium until I need it somewhere else. I put the parquet floor in when I thought that was going to be a kitchen for a little cottage.

Someday, it might still be a cottage, and the Ladies' Emporium will be in one roombox, and the Tea Room will be in another.

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Thanks Roxy!

Kathi and Holly, when you used regular stain, how did you do it? I've "stained" the pieces before using a 50/50 mix of craft paint and glazing medium, brush on and then wipe some of it off, leaving a thin layer of color. It worked fine, but the finish is very delicate until it's fully dry and clear coated with spray acrylic.

Kathi, your Orchid is darling!

 

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When DH's teeshirts become old, ratty and uber soft they re promoted to the workshop where I use them to apply stain to wood.  For Chrysnbon I use an old natural bristle paint brush (old water color brush works well) that will stand up to turps for cleaning.  The brush works best for the plastic because the stain doesn't soak in like it does with wood, and the rag sucks the paint out of the grain grooves along with wiping the stain right back off of the plastic; sort of defeats the purpose of using stain...

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1 hour ago, stickyfingers said:

Thanks Roxy!

Kathi and Holly, when you used regular stain, how did you do it? I've "stained" the pieces before using a 50/50 mix of craft paint and glazing medium, brush on and then wipe some of it off, leaving a thin layer of color. It worked fine, but the finish is very delicate until it's fully dry and clear coated with spray acrylic.

Kathi, your Orchid is darling!

 

I usually use an old t-shirt of my husband's on wood too. For things with little crevices that the t-shirt won't reach, I use a brush to get the stain into the crevices.

I don't remember how I did the Chrysnbon, it's been years since I did any, but I probably did the same thing as Holly for the same reasons. I expect that I experimented. I do know that I used the HOM walnut stain on the Chrysnbon, I just don't remember what I used to apply it. I did those pieces years ago.

Thanks for you comment on  my Orchid, but mine pales in comparison to yours! I didn't do anything extra to mine, I even painted it the same color as the box, because I liked the way they painted theirs.

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