Fairfield Stair Assembly

[Roxxie2]

Next Question:  How in heck do you get the window and door trim in that tower once you have set it into the floor with the second floor on?   No way can you get in there? 

[Debsrand56]

I put my paper on before assembling (only you have to very, very careful not to rip the paper on the first floor when you are sliding the tower through).  I put my interior window and door trim on before putting in the fourth wall of the tower and before putting my staircase to the third floor in, because I knew I'd never be able to reach otherwise.  I did manage to put the interior door trim on the first floor after assembling (I don't think there's any other way).  It was tight but do-able.

[Roxxie2]

Did you have the better Fairfield package?   I don't have a stairs to the 3rd floor in my kit.

 

[Debsrand56]

No, I made mine.  it drove me crazy that there was no way to get to the third floor.  I copied the stringer from the first floor (roughly) in mat board, then used strip would for the risers and treads.  I also used mat board for the back of the staircase.

[Roxxie2]

More work than I want to do!   I just pretend you can't see the back stairs!   I actually lived in a real Victorian house much like this and our back stairs went from the back of the kitchen to the third floor.  It was hidden behind a door so  you wouldn't know it was there even if you looked.  It was suppose to be a servants stairs I think. 

[wormwoodz]

The second floor corridor: I did not apply any decorations to this area before I glued the walls, I used templates for the floor and ceiling. I also had the wallpapper cut beforehand (with the door openings etc), so I only had to apply glue and do minimal adjustments. I try to always wallpapper after gluing, and starting from the back of the room. I don't know how big your hands are... but I managed to do this area with no problems. But YES it's very narrow and I had to be super careful gluing the mouldings and etc  That was the room that took me the longest time to finish. The window interior trims I assembled them and painted, then I inserted them through the window openings in the tower (with my finger steadily holding it, adjusting it into position. I have the "glass" of my windows glued to the exterior trims, so I repeated this for all the windows in the house (including the round ones at the tower top, I think those are the hardest).

The stairs to the third floor: I bought a 1:24 stair kit from Houseworks, took measurements of the Fairfield's kit stairs, then politelly asked a neighbour if I could borrow his table saw for a few seconds  

I was going to do the same as Deborah, using spare plywood from the kit's cutouts to make a copy of the stairs... but I messed up halfway of cutting the new stringer, lost my patience and picked the 'easy' way out. I do wish this kit came with an "optional" second kit for stairs for the 3rd floor, they look good on display but if I was making the house for a kid to play I'd leave them out.

[havanaholly]

I painted the interior walls of my tower's third floor.

[Graham]

I’m having an issue with the back wall fitting vertically. I’ve dry fitted the second floor and it all seems to fit except for the back wall piece. Most likely will just make a new back wall and vertical piece.