Scratch-built Tudor Progress

I guess I have neglected this blog for too long.
 
For the past eight months I have been working frantically to get the house ready for Tom Bishop's Chicago International show coming up this April.  It won't be finished in time, but it will be close.
 
The more pressing deadline now is the Orlando dollhouse miniature show coming up this weekend.  I will be a vendor there, but I will only have the unfinished Tudor on display.  The Bed & Breakfast will not be there as it is currently undergoing repairs from the accident that occurred two years ago.  With the Chicago show coming up, I finally started the unpleasant task of working on it again.  I have dismantled the damaged parts and will spend the next two months rebuilding her.
 
I plan to focus on the Tudor's roof during the next two evenings.  My almost 4 year-old son got into my workshop last year and nearly destroyed the roof framing.  Besides the needed repairs, I have to extend the roof trusses and flooring to cover the 2 inch extension I added several months ago to accommodate the bathroom.
 
The first floor is only missing a few light fixtures.  All of the staircase banisters were completed several months ago and add to the view from the main entrance.
 

 
The 2nd floor is about 75% complete.  The landing is completely finished, the 2nd floor bed room still needs mortar for the hearth brick work, crown molding and a light fixture, which it will get on Saturday right before the preview show.  The bath room needs a ceiling panel and crown molding, the columns and arches installed over the tub surround, and the far exterior wall installed.  The Library's walls, floor and windows are installed, but it still needs wall paneling, books and bookcases.  It also needs a coffer ceiling, fireplace mantle (the last to go into this house) and chandeliers.  The other mantle, in the bedroom worked out rather well, I think:
 

 
The current view gives you the idea of what it will look like when its completed.
 

 
I doubt I will get the attic interior sheathed at the show, but I can always hope. 
 
 
  

Once again, one of the chimney chases is interfering with other rooms. It worked well with the kitchen floorplan, but has caused such a narrow passage within the 2nd floor bathroom that I had to extend the length of the house by about 2 inches.



Adding the extra floor space was easy for the floor itself, but I will have to extend the decks above it. The attic will also need to be extended. One of my kids unlocked my workshop a couple of weeks ago and all but demolished the attic, so it was going to need extensive repairs anyway. After sorting out the pile of broken rafters I was able to determine that the pile was more like a stack of disassembled sections with moderate damage as opposed to hundreds of rafters broken into thousands of little pieces. It will add work to an already tight building schedule, but I think I can get it done by next April.

April is the deadline because I was accepted into Tom Bishop's Chicago International Miniature Show again. My only disappointment is that I will only have the Tudor house at the show. I won't have time to repair the Sweetwater Branch Inn, so it will stay in Florida.

On the upside, I was able to make a quick trip to Ron's Miniature's in Orlando recently and found an oven range for the kitchen. It isn't lit yet, but will be soon. I picked up hardware for the tub and a desk for the library too. It was a most successful shopping trip.

After 3 months of making parquet flooring I'm finally working on structural components again. The library inlay was installed on a 16" plywood sheet separately from the rest of the house, but it isn't installed yet. Unless someone makes a battery powered desk lamp, I will need to wait until I can make a trip to Ron's in October before finishing the flooring. The 2nd floor's main wall outlet circuit will run under the library floor and connect with an outlet built into the globe feature. A desk lamp wired through the desk will plug directly into the floor, but I need an exact fitting with the desk itself before I start drilling holes into that floor.



Since the trip isn't for a couple of months, I have started work on the other 2nd floor rooms. All of the walls have been wired and paneled. I start mapping the floor for tile placement in the bathroom later this week and final assembly of the 2nd floor staircase in September. One of the upsides to eventually finishing the floors is I will be able to finally install the turret windows permanently. They have been waiting for a home for over 2 years. I will be relieved to have them attached and out of harm's way.



I'm gearing up start cutting styrene tiles for the bathroom floor and walls. The room will have an oversized jacuzzi tub sunk into a pedestal flanked with a pair of columns. I'm still working out a way to build it, but I hope to have a back-lit dome above the tub. The room is over 16 inches deep, but only about 7 inches wide, so it will take some work to make the room look balanced. I had thought about giving the room a barrel vault with a sky mural, creating a Roman courtyard feel, but I think that might be too much.

The bedroom next to it will have warm gray, almost cream colored walls with white base and crown molding. All of the doors will have identical frames as the 1st floor entry ways, but with paneled doors similar to the front door.

If it wasn't for all the wrought iron railings I have to make for the staircases and custom book shelves, I would think building the rest of the house in time for Chicago International would be a breeze, but it will be very close if I finish in time at all.

After months of finishing work on the 1st floor and weeks of wiring work inside the 2nd floor joists, I have finally started to make and install the 2nd floor parquetry on the house.

The wiring was more complex than I had planned for it to be and I did have a couple of repairs to make before moving on to the flooring. However, it is up and running and the flexibility of lighting different rooms in countless different configurations made that part of construction worth the added effort.



I also had to re-design the 2nd floor exterior wall that makes up the main exterior view and the largest wall on this house. Instead of 2 panoramic windows, the new wall has 3 smaller windows. It was necessary to change the design to prevent any windows from being split by an interior wall. The new wall took almost 10 hours to frame, but it is ready for paneling.

The 2nd floor, from left to right, will have a bathroom, bedroom, 2nd floor landing and a library. The outer edge of the bedroom floor has been installed and most of the parts used to make the border pattern that can be seen on the first floor have been prefabricated. I expect the bedroom to take about a month. The landing should take about 2 - 3 weeks, and the bathroom, which will have tiling, will take about 2 weeks. The library is another story. It will have several features along with some of the longest stretches of border inlay in the entire house. I will be surprised if its completed before September.

After the flooring is complete, the only major projects left on the house will be the bookcases & books. The rest of the work will be standard building construction. I doubt the house will be finished in time for the Philly show in November, but it should be close if I don't encounter any major delays.

My apologies for not having many new photos to add. I will definitely include some in my next post.

I guess from reading my instructions on how to build a jig for making studs is a bit confusing, so I built one and will offer a tutorial for building it.

Be aware that the boards being cut into studs will lie flush with the guides. If you're not comfortable cutting studs this way, you can either overlay each part with a 2nd layer of boards cut identically to the first set, or use a thicker board (3/16" or 1/4" thick instead of 1/8").

What you will need:
A board or block of wood at least 12 inches long and 2 inches wide
A craft or modeler's saw
A miter box or something to make squared, 90 degree cuts
Ruler
Pen
30 inches of 1/8" X 3/8" boards, with at least one 12" and one 10" in length
glue
masking tape
* 1/8" X 1/4" board.

*The best candidate that I could find for a block was a scrap piece of 1" X 2" board.
Unfortunately, it is more like 1" X 1.5", so I had to make one slight modification, which I'll mention
later on.

1. Cut the length of the block down to 12 inches.
2. From one end of the block viewing the broad side, measure and score it at the 9 3/4" mark
on the left side and 10" on the right (see marks in photo 1). Make sure the marks are at least
1/2" long.
3. From the top end of the block, measure 1" and mark it. This mark should be about 1 1/4" from
the first mark (that was made at 9 3/4"). This will be a 1" guide for the spacer portion of the jig.
4. Next, cut two planks from a 1/8" X 3/8" board, the 1st is 12" long and the other is 10". These will
be the guides for the boards being cut into studs.

The parts were photographed upside down from the instructions (SORRY!)





5. Glue the 12" board along the left side of the block.
6. Glue the 10" board along the right side. It is best to use masking tape so the boards don't slip
out of alignment with the edge of the block.
7. Cut a board that spans the width of the block from the left side guide to the far right
edge of the block, and glue it onto the block on the inside edge of the 1" guide mark.
8.. Cut a piece of 1/8" X 3/8" board at 7/8" and glue it directly against the left guide in the corner
between the 1" guide and the 9 3/4" mark.*
9. Cut a piece of 1/8" X 3/8" that will fit when installed across from the previously installed part
across the block at the 10" mark and glue it against the top of the 10" guide.

After the glue has dried and tape is removed, your jig will be ready to use.

* Because my block was not the standard 2" that the instructions call for, the images will differ from this point. If you have a block cut by mathematically challenged carpenters, follow the instructions starting after image 2.




Cut a 2nd board that spans the block from the right side of the left guide to the right edge of the block. Glue it directly above the 10" mark. It should rest against the top of the 10" guide.

Cut a 1/8" X 1/4" board short enough that there is just over 3/8" space between the end of the part and the 10" guide. Glue it down in the upper left corner between the 9 3/4" mark and previously installed part. When cutting jack studs, the board will exceed the width of this part, but it won't affect the cuts as long as the board doesn't move while cutting.



I'm definitely not much of an instructor, so if this doesn't make sense, do let me know.

I'm not sure if this will be useful to anyone, but I thought I would add a wood framing tutorial. I'm not a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination, so if I get any of the terminology wrong, by all means, please let me know.

First, I don't own a table saw (yet) so I start by making a jig for cutting studs and spacers. I use a thick board (at least 3/16" or thicker) as the jig block and glue a 1/8" x 3/8" board along the edge. I next measure 9 3/4" and 10" on the glued down board. I then glue a 2nd and 3rd board along the end of the first at those two measurements in that order with a 4th board that runs along the length of the block with 3/4" space between it and the 1st board. All you have to do to make studs is to set a board in one of those two slots and cut the board at the end with a modeler's or craft saw. The 10" boars are "king studs" (they go on the end of each wall) and the 9 3/4" boards are "jack studs". I usually use a 3/8" x 3/8" board for the king studs as they're either wall ends or corners. At the other end of the block I measure off 1" and glue a board at that location for the spacer jig. They're the boards that go between the studs along the runs.

My walls aren't true 2 x 4 walls. I use 1/8" x 3/8" boards to frame houses. That extra 1/8" of space is just right for electrical connections and doorframes. I start by measuring off the length of the wall I want to build and deduct 3/4" (for the 2 king studs) and cut 3 runs at that length. If there is a doorway in the plans I'll determine where the door will be and cut two runs accordingly. Next I glue a jack stud onto each of the king studs, centered with a 1/8" space at each end. I then mark the ends of each run at 1/8" and mark the run at intervals of 1", 1/8" until I reach the doorway or far end of the run. I usually line up the corresponding run along the first and use it as a guide to mark the intervals. I glue spacers over each of the pre-marked 1" intervals. I usually wrap all of these parts with masking tape until the glue dries, otherwise the boards may slide or warp from the moisture in the glue and dry misaligned. After everything has dried I'll dry-fit the jack studs into the 1/8" gaps along the runs. While it isn't necessary, I like to make a center run for each wall. I have been told that in real woodframing these are fire breaks, meant to slow the progress of a house fire, but I'm not certain that is the case. I like the added stability, so I install them. One way is to glue spacers in between each stud at the mid-point. The other option is to cut 1/8" notches half way through each jack stud at the mid-point and cut corresponding notches out of the center run. Either way, the state building inspector isn't going to pay anyone a visit anytime soon, so it doesn't really matter. After confirming that everything fits properly, I disassemble the wall and then glue everything in place, startng with the jack studs and runs. I secure the assembly with masking tape and set on a flat surface with a 1 gallon paint can or other heavy object to prevent warping.

Its almost been 3 years since I started this house and I'm finally finishing the 1st floor. Technically I'm past the 1/2 way point due to the fact that the basement, all but the few damaged areas of wood framing and about 1/3 of the attic are finished.

Most of the 2nd floor frame damage is just a few studs missing from about half of the different wall sections. It might take an hour or two to repair. The attic is another story. One of the two rooms was completely framed and sheathed before the accident. Now about half of the wall panels are either missing or damaged and all of the walls have varying amounts of damage. The 3rd floor turret framing is completely demolished and will have to be rebuilt up to the roof cone. Not impossible to repair, but a lot of extra work and expense.

Regarding the 1st floor- I just laid the last of the bricks. The faux brick panel for the main entrance exterior light is made and ready to be wired and installed. After that its a lot of mortar work. I still have the dining room window casement to make and install, relocate the kitchen main circuit wire, and panel/detail the kitchen's exterior. Interior work left is just a few pieces of base and crown moulding in the dining room, fabrication and installation of the foyer's light switches and a few other little things. The 2nd floor deck is ready for installation and wiring as soon as those few items are complete. I also put a shallow coffered ceiling in the foyer to finish off the back-lit crown moulding. The security alarm panel is installed with working red & green "lights" (two fiber optic lines running from another light). Now if I can find a way to get a good picture of it with the lights on. . .

I getting excited about the 2nd floor parquet inlay. The library will be spectacular if I can produce what I have in mind. That and the bookcases are really the only complex parts of the 2nd floor. If I stay on schedule, I should begin working on those details by the 2nd week of September and possibly be ready to move on to the attic by January 2012.

I also attached a photo of the houses taken by Rhonda in Kentucky about 30 minutes before the accident.

As almost everyone knows, both of my houses and the castle were damaged by a 19 year-old kid driving in the dark without lights and running people off the road collided with the trailer.

If I decide to repair the B&B it will cost a bundle and take at least a month to rebuild the entire foundation and 1st floor deck. If any of the main house structure needs work (besides replacing the French doors) it will take even longer.

Most of the Tudor's damage was to the framing and base trim. Still, it will take time and money I'd rather spend on building the rest of the house.

I would post pics of the houses and damage, but GL won't allow me to post new pics here either, so I guess my gallery is done and the blog will be a "read only" offering.

I've been working on attic, kitchen and living room simultaneously over the past month. Building a removable roof has made the project feel more like two builds.

The East half of the attic is paneled and ready for wall dressing. The flooring is in the entire attic and ready for glosscoat (when it stops raining), and the first wall panel for the 3rd floor turret is cut and ready to install.



The Kitchen walls are covered, but still need wiring before I can install cabinets. Cabinets that I have designed, but aren't built yet. I think I have a 50/50 chance of making them house worthy. If I fail after a couple of attempts I'll shop around for a good cabinet set I can modify to fit the room. Its wishful thinking, but I would like to have the kitchen 75 - 90% finished in time for Tom Bishop's Chicago International Show in April.

The living room is very close to ready for installation. The East wall needs a few more pieces of base board, wiring and the entry ways dressed. The NW side of the room needs base boards and glosscoat (possibly ready by tonight), and I'm putting the finishing touches on the Southeast door leading out to the driveway. The door isn't excessivly fancy, but it will have over 90 hand-cut parts once finished.



I still haven't heard from my sponsor for Chicago International. Without their support the trip won't happen. What's more disturbing is the fact that I've already committed to Mr. Bishop that I would be there. If I don't get the funding I will most likely not have enough funds to get there and will never get invited back if I'm a no-show. I'd hate to spend what little saving I have left to get there only to return with both houses unsold.

I guess it was inevitable that I would reach a limit to my abilities, especially under the limitations I have to face. I don't have a wood working shop (table saw, band saw, sander, etc.) so I have to make all of my cuts by hand. I figured I would be able to build the kitchen cabinets with the skills I got from working in a cabinet shop back in 2000. The cabinet bodies and doors are acceptable, but without the right hinges, impossible to assemble. I was hoping to find a different kind of hinge or at least find out what technique the professionals use while I was at Ron's Miniatures. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the "professionals" don't use hinges at all, but pins! While it may look relatively clean, the fact is, cabinet doors aren't flush with the cabinets in real life, and shouldn't in mini (if you want a realistic look).

My only option was to order pinned cabinets from Houseworks. I'll still use my counter tops and kitchen sink, but the rest will be manufactured.

The other failure was the fireplace mantle. I haven't done mini mould making, so I don't have the skills to produce a truly worthy fireplace mantle for the Tudor house. I bought a resin mantle at Ron's that not only looks great, but fits very nicely. I just need to find out who the manufacturer is so I can give credit where credit is due.

Hopefully I'll have 60% of the Tudor's 1st floor complete by the time I get to Chicago on April 8th.