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LaserTech Beach House


MaryKate

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I've begun assembling the LaserTech Beach House kit my parents gave me a number of years ago. I love the look of the house, especially the batten siding, skylights, and "pier" foundation, and even though it's only one room (plus addition) it's a huge room. I can't wait to pour my love of all things ocean into the decorating and landscaping.

I love the building process at least as much as the decorating, but, not too far into the build, I'm finding the instructions a bit frustrating. The layout of the battens on at least one of the walls, which are glued onto the walls before assembly, is described differently in the written directions than they look to be in the drawing of that wall. Thank goodness for those drawings, because otherwise I'd be completely lost. And the only drawing of the whole structure shows only one angle of the house, so I'm not sure what it's supposed to look like on each side when assembled. There are no photos with the kit, and there are precious few online (I've found one set that someone put up here of the house already assembled, and the photos on the website, where it's pictured with shutters that aren't included in the kit). It's not a really common kit, or at least the people who've built it don't seem to do a lot of documenting.

I mean, I'm fairly experienced at building and so far I've managed to work out the discrepancies between the directions and the drawing, though I'm still confused about some of the pieces of batten and trim. The directions sometimes say which of the batten pieces to use to cut to fit, and sometimes just say "batten" without the label for which length pieces to use, so I haven't always been sure that I'm using up the right stock. I guess I'll figure out when I get to the end and run out of something? 

I'm just venting here (I should go down and glue some more ;). I really don't think I'll have any trouble figuring it out and filling in the blanks. But as a teacher and a writer, it does raise my hackles when directions for something like this aren't clear and accurate. Has anyone else ever built this one? I wonder if, in the years since my parents bought it for me, they've revamped the directions.

I'll try to post pictures of the process as I go, in case anyone else looking for guidance stumbles across my little odyssey!

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Make sure to use full length battens behind the shutters in order to keep the shutters raised. Don’t know if this helps.

and make sure you mitre each piece along the gable. Looks like a 20 degree cut.

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Good points, thank you!

Some of the ends along the gables I mitred; others ended up a little too long. I waited until the glue dried, flipped the piece over, and trimmed it flush with the angle.

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While I generally love the laser cut-ness of this kit (everything fits! NO SANDING!!!), I am up against the first "problem": no scrap wood to try out the painting process.

The walls are MDF. I've worked with it before, but it was a barn project for my nephew, so I wanted nice, solid red and whites. All it took was a couple coats of sample paints from the hardware store and it was good to go. 

But here, I was hoping to create a weathered, beachy look. I'll need to do some layering and I really want to try a couple different ideas (mostly gleaned from Pat Thomas's articles in back issues of Nutshell News/Dollhouse Miniatures). I have plenty of wood scraps of other kinds that I could use to experiment, but MDF doesn't take paint like any other wood, and it's already fairly dark, so I'm wondering if I can use that to my advantage. I think I'm going to have to try stuff out on the underside of the base. It's the only surface that won't show! 

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Just now, NellBell said:

I’ve done laser furniture and they pop out of a square piece I’ve used that piece  to test colors on  since I’ve never done a house does everything come actual size ? 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/11/2018, 1:49:46, NellBell said:

 

I don't know about other laser cut kits (like the ones from Greenleaf), but for this one everything is pre-cut, even the window frames. I ended up trying out the paint on the bottom of the base, and thanks to that test run I shifted gears completely and painted the exterior walls a pale green and the interior cream. I'll paint most of the trim the same cream, and I'm going to add shutters so those will be cream as well.

Since I last posted, I've assembled the walls of the main house and have started working on the ceiling/roof. Should be able to glue on the beams later today once the stain dries.

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I like the board&batten exterior.  When I did that with my Magnolia I glued the battens on after the  house was assembled (I built it for the Team Magnolia building blog, and was asked to build it without any bashing or prefinishing, so people could see how the raw kit looked, put together.  I used poster putty for attaching the door and window components and set the roof in place, since I was going to have to finish and customize after the build, instead of my usual as-I-go method.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just a note in case anyone else builds this house and stumbles across this thread looking for advice: 

For the most part, the directions are clear and the diagrams help a great deal. However, there's an error in the diagram for the base, where you glue on all that strip wood to lift the bottom of the house off the display board. It's on the diagram on page 2 labeled "BASE (underside of Cottage)." The written directions tell you to glue T4 Joist Trim pieces on the addition and T5 Joist Trim pieces to the porch, but the diagram labels the pieces on the addition as T5 and the porch as T4. THE WRITTEN DIRECTIONS ARE CORRECT. It can get confusing, but take it step by step and pre-fit all the joists and you'll be okay. Feel free to ask here or message me if you run into frustrations!

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