Question on the Front-Opening Victorian

[rodentraiser]

Has anyone here put together the Houseworks/RGT front-opening Victorian? I have a question on the porch.

The porch floor, is 3/16" shorter than the floor of the house. So if I put the porch against the house, there will be a 3/16" gap between the bottom of the door and the porch floor. It must be planned like that because the foundations of the porch are 3/16" shorter than the foundations of the house, according to the parts list. Does anyone know why this is and how did you deal with it? I guess I can just fill in around the bottom of the door, but it just strikes me as really weird.

[Sable]

By looking at finished pics of this model, it looks like there is door trim under the door to cover the gap and it appears as though it's a step down to the porch.

[rodentraiser]

You have much sharper eyes than I do. How on earth are you seeing that? I looked and looked and still couldn't see that. I though maybe I got a defective kit.

Now my next question is, why did they do that?

[fov]

I have the half scale version, already built. The builder glued the front door closed so I can't open it to see how the porch and the floor line up, but it appears that you're right. In half scale it appears the foundation + porch floor is 1 3/16" high and the interior floor is 1 1/4" high. (Or it might have been 1 3/8" and 1 1/2" - I measured it and then ran back to my computer without writing it down...)

If they don't line up, that would explain why the builder glued the door shut... I was wondering about that!

Do you have the plan book that goes with this house? (Did it come with the kit?) If you don't have it, I do and I can dig it out for you and see if it says anything about this. Also I'm going to be at Dollhouses Trains and More tomorrow and they have a half scale version on display, I can check and see if the door opens on that one. (They might even have a 1:12 version on display, not sure.) I'll try to remember!

ps - Maybe add 3/16" basswood "floorboards" to the porch to bring it up to the same height as the interior floor? You'd need to enlarge the door opening at the top to make the door fit.

[Sable]

See how the green door is higher than the porch? There is trim under the door. I think the door trim will become self explanatory. 

[rodentraiser]

Emily, I have the plan book, but the instructions I got with the kit said to not use it for building the kit. However, the base foundation pieces are 2 5/8" high in the kit and in the book, they're shown to be 2 1/2". So there is a discrepancy between the book and the kit. I'm at a loss to find out what the porch foundations are in the book. I'm sure they're there somewhere, but I can't find them. In the kit, they're 2 7/16".

I also noticed that the stairwell on the 2nd floor in the book leaves much more room for the little people to step off than the kit does. By the way, I keep abbreviating 'front opening Victorian' as....FOV.

I think I'll just put the porch on as is and then find a 3/16" sheet of wood and add that to the floor when I go to decorate it. Adding floorboards is a good idea, but I'll also be adding those to the floors in the house and that will raise that floor too. So I'd be back where I started. I don't have to worry about the doorway because I'm cutting my own (famous last words).

Sable, I really can't see that. I thought the green door's sill was just painted white. I'll take your word for it though.

 

[fov]

It seems the half scale and 1" scale are a bit different in the porch area, so what mine looks like might not be relevant to you. Here's the half scale:

And here's the 1" scale:

(Images from miniatures.com)

In the half scale, the porch is attached to the front. In the one inch, the top piece of the porch is attached to the front and slides over the bottom piece of the porch. (There's also a foundation piece under the bay window that's missing in the half scale version.)

It appears in the 1:12 picture that the top porch piece and floor piece should line up when the door is closed... unless that porch floor is not the same thickness as the house floor (which might be what you were saying originally). Does your kit have the porch fully attached to the front of the house or not?

This picture is of the newer design for this house. I can't find any open pics for the older version in 1:12 scale.

I'll let you know if I see one in person tomorrow.

 

[rodentraiser]

OK, well, that answers that question.

I think my entire porch is supposed to attach to the open door and if I'm not mistaken, so is the bay window. If I did have another porch floor, it would have to be a very, very thin one and I know I don't have a piece like that in my box.

I think there is another difference in the kit I have and your picture. I think my third floor overhangs the sides as well as the front and I know my dormer window is not cut out all the way - I just have a square opening cut out for my dormer like in your half inch house instead of having the entire dormer cut out. And my large gable cutout doesn't come to a point either - it is cut off against the top like in your half inch house. In fact, my 1:12 house looks exactly like your 1:24 house.

I will check tomorrow. This afternoon when I finished, I just put everything in the back of my car so I didn't have to bring it all up to my room and then bring it all back down again tomorrow. And I'm feeling too old and tired now to go back downstairs and look for the instructions tonight.

As I've moved the porch around to the side and it's going to be stationary, I don't have to worry about the porch floor that much. As I said, I'll just get a thin piece of plywood and cut it to fit.

My bay window got cut in half today and wouldn't you know, I totally forgot about the base to the bay window. But it doesn't look bad just hanging off the side, so I may leave it like that. I mean, I don't have to mow the grass under it or anything. And I haven't decided whether or not to have a dormer window yet. Tomorrow I cut up the roof to move the gable and I'll have to see how that affects the rest of the roof.

You know, I had the two side pieces for the porch foundation last night. So I thought they were with all the other wood pieces I brought down this morning. But when I got outside, one of the side porch foundation pieces had gone walkabout. So I have to cut a new one. Maybe, depending on how frickin' sick I am of sawing, I may just go ahead and saw the other side and the front foundation pieces and make them the height I want them to be for the porch. Then I don't have to worry about the porch not lining up with the interior floor.

Emily and Sable, thank you so much for your time in finding pics of the house. Who would think they would change so much in a kit? But now that I think about it, many moons ago I saw a kit for the Georgian design of this kit and the walls were stacked: base, floor, first floor walls, then the second floor, then the second story walls, etc.

I wonder if RGT changed the design to make it easier to put the kit together or if they just made a new design and patented it so they didn't have to pay royalties every time they made the kit.

 

 

 

[fov]

Interesting! We don't even know if the picture I posted of the 1:12 opened house is the redesigned version or the old one. It's on Miniatures.com's page for the redesign, but that doesn't mean it *is* that house. It's not painted green like the exterior of the new version. How new is the one you're building - did you just buy it new? What's its official name? This house seems to have changed from "front opening Victorian" to "Country Victorian" with the redesign.

I saw the half scale one at the store today and the front door does open, and the porch floor is flush with the interior floor. But, the porch is attached to the front piece, exactly like it is on mine. I'm not sure what's different about it. It was up on a shelf so hard to get a good look. They didn't have a 1:12 one on display.

(You could email RGT and ask, maybe they can shed some light?)

 

[fov]

Found a few in the gallery...

1:12 with a shell like the half inch:

 

1:12 with the porch foundation attached to the house foundation:

Now I'm curious about the kit I have in my stash, which predates the RGT redesign (I'm 99% sure it's branded Houseworks).

[rodentraiser]

Now I'm curious. LOL

My house came sealed in a box and says it's 'The Front-Opening Victorian' and the maker is specifically Real Good Toys. No mention of Houseworks except at the end of the parts list it says "Congratulations on your purchase of a Houseworks dollhouse." Go figure - maybe they just forgot to change that line. Does your house have a number? Mine says it's # H-303. The diagrams on the instructions match the house: square for the dormer and no point on the cutout for the large gable and it looks like the on the instructions, there is no bay window base under the bay window and that the bay window and the porch attach to the outside of the house.

I did a quick check of some of my miniature catalogs and I'm beginning to think you have the older version and I have a newer one. The miniature catalog only shows the front of the house. Unfortunately, they painted the base a dark color that perfectly blends into the grass it's put on and that makes it impossible in a BW photo to see if the house has a base under that bay window or not. But one thing it does say is that the kit comes with a plan book (mine didn't) and it definitely says it's by Houseworks. And it says the stock # is 4303.

Also, do you remember what kind of hinges came with your house? As you have the half inch, it might not be a big deal, but I notice a lot of these houses with front opening doors have the long piano hinges. My house came with only 3 inch wide hinges for each door. I would have swapped them out for piano hinges because in no way do I think those little hinges would stand up to the doors being opened and shut all the time.

Now I'm wondering if Houseworks simply sold the rights to the house to RGT and after that, RGT decided to make some changes to make the kit easier to put together.

[fov]

The one I have in kit form did come with the plan book. When I bought it, the picture Miniatures.com used on their website was the same one that appears on the plan book cover, not the one with the blue fishscale shingles that represents the half scale house now.

I'll dig out the kit and see if I can figure out anything else about what it is. The one I have built up, I have been assuming is the newer one, but I really don't know. The builder was going to use those stairs that go up halfway, have a landing, and then reverse direction, and those are older stairs.

[fov]

Here are some pix of my kit that's still boxed up. I bought this in 2005.

I opened the box but all the pieces are shrink wrapped together and I didn't want to unwrap them all and make a mess. The item number was H1001 but the paperwork references H-303 as the 1" scale version. Also there's a picture of the two shells side by side, and the 1" version in that picture does not have the foundation under the bay window. (The picture on the front of the plan book doesn't either... maybe it's the *redesigned* Country Victorian that has that foundation under the bay, and not the older Front Opening Victorian styles? I don't think the half scale version was ever renamed, so maybe it's just have been the same "old" style all along...)

I didn't see hinges but the instructions show small hinges in the diagrams. My built-up one and the one at Dollhouses Trains and More also have the small hinges, not piano hinges.

[fov]

Oh, okay, mystery solved maybe. Check out the description of the newer version on Miniatures.com: http://www.miniatures.com/Country-Victorian-Dollhouse-by-RGT--P18563.aspx

It's made from MDF and has milled siding. (It also has the piano hinges.) The older ones are smooth plywood. So if your house is plywood it must be the older version.

That doesn't answer your original question about why the floor doesn't up, though.

[rodentraiser]

Well, I think you've done wonders getting all that info. By the way, that pic you showed in your post "The 1/2" front-opening Victorian smooth shell...." is exactly the same picture of the 1" house in the Miniatures catalog. And now that I see the picture blown up, I can see the brackets under that bay window, which means there definitely isn't a base to that house.

And yes, mine is smooth plywood. Or maybe it's smooth cement. Either that or I have a really dull blade in that jigsaw. There was a point today where I wasn't sure if I could push the saw through the wood. And that wasn't the time I was cutting the table, either!

Anyway, I'm almost done putting my house together except for the porch and a few other things, and I can put the porch together tomorrow since all I have to do now is glue and nail it. Once I do that, I'll post a picture of the porch and front door.

[rodentraiser]

Well, here is a picture of my porch compared to the front door - looks like I have some tweaking to do on this:

The drop is 1/4", so maybe I can find some quarter inch wood and just raise the porch floor.

[dsrtdrifter]

On 7/8/2016, 4:03:05, rodentraiser said:

Has anyone here put together the Houseworks/RGT front-opening Victorian? I have a question on the porch.

The porch floor, is 3/16" shorter than the floor of the house. So if I put the porch against the house, there will be a 3/16" gap between the bottom of the door and the porch floor. It must be planned like that because the foundations of the porch are 3/16" shorter than the foundations of the house, according to the parts list. Does anyone know why this is and how did you deal with it? I guess I can just fill in around the bottom of the door, but it just strikes me as really weird.

Many older "real" homes have a step down from the main house to the porch.  I'm sure there was a practical reason why, but don't know what it is.  Houseworks probably took that into consideration when they made the kit.  I saw someone comment that they saw a model where the porch floor was even with the floor of the house.  The builder probably built up the floor.

[dsrtdrifter]

1 hour ago, rodentraiser said:

Well, here is a picture of my porch compared to the front door - looks like I have some tweaking to do on this:

The drop is 1/4", so maybe I can find some quarter inch wood and just raise the porch floor.

don't raise the porch floor.  It's intended to be like that.  The house I grew up in had a door sill or thresh hold (like a window sill only for the door).  

[rodentraiser]

Are you sure? The doors we buy for our dollhouses already have sills on them. So what would happen here is there would be a gap under the sill of any door I'd put in and the floor of the porch. I know it's hard to tell, but the floor on the other side of the doorway is even up to that 'sill' in the doorway.

[fov]

So the bottom of the door hole is even with the *interior* floor? On my built up kit it appears that the bottom of the door is lower than the interior floor, which would have prevented the door from swinging open. If your door can open then this isn't as bad as I thought!

Some houses in my old neighborhood did have doors like this slightly above the porch (or stoop) floor. It always looked funny to me, like the door was floating, but I saw it on enough houses that it couldn't have been a mistake. Here's one (I hope the link works!)

Rather than raising up the porch floor, what if you just add some strip wood under the sill painted the same color as the sill, so it looks like a taller sill?

(Whether or not it's technically correct, I think you should do whatever makes you happy. Something like that would probably bother me just like it did when I saw it on the real houses...)

[fov]

ps When in doubt, Google! Here are some relevant front doors.

http://www.peggylampman.com/prop257.html -- this one has an additional "base" under the door threshold, would be easy to make something like that

http://hookedonhouses.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Victorian-house-after-front-door.jpg -- this one's floating, looks funny to me

http://www.housekaboodle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Victorian-home-front-door-painted-purple-and-white.jpg -- also looks like it would be easy to do

 

[rodentraiser]

You're right, that's exactly what mine looks like. Great catch, Emily, and Sarah, you were right, too. I had no idea real houses had front doors like that.

What I meant is, my front door opening is even with the floor behind it, even though it doesn't look like it in the picture (that's how I sawed it). Miniature doors have their "stops" on the sides since the doors are usually held with pins, not hinges, to keep them opening only one way. Which is why it's so hard to change a door opening around.

The other problem I have is the steps. They also only come up to just under the floor of the porch, so there's like another quarter inch step to take up. I really don't like those little steps in front of doors. My old landlord built some steps for the trailer I lived in and as he measured about as well as I do, there was about 6" left on the bottom and he just made another step out of it. If you didn't know it was there, it was really easy to misstep and potentially hurt yourself.

I think I'm going to raise the porch foundations to bring the porch up to the level of the doorway. Then any door I put in there will make its own sill and a lot of them are oversize anyway. Then the porch steps will come up to one full step under the porch floor and it will look a lot better.

 

[Sable]

All of our doors are a step up into the house because we get so much rain here. Without the step we would run the risk of rain water flowing under the door. It is problem for wheelchairs as getting up over the step requires a ramp Or someone strong enough to pull the chair up over the step.