May 2015: I started the Arthur as part of a Greenleaf community build in 2005, and at the time we blogged our progress on the Greenleaf forum. After a few site upgrades the old community blog has become hard to link to and I’m redoing my website anyway, so I decided to move those posts over here and backdate them. Sorry for any weirdness that results!

I am finally getting a chance now to upload the pictures of the work I did on Saturday.

Geoff and I made another trip to the hangar. My main objective for the day was to get the door finished. Doors in die-cut houses are notorious for not fitting right, especially after you’ve painted on the edges. With my Orchid, I must have spent half a day trying to sand down the inside of the doorway to get the door to fit… very frustrating! It didn’t occur to me at the time that I could use the electric sander to sand around the edge of the door instead. Since the sander lives at the hangar, I wanted to get the door assembled so I could sand it to fit in the doorway.

But first I started my day by staining the rest of the shingles. (I had only stained about half of them initially. There isn’t really a well-ventilated place in my house to do it so it’s better to do staining at the hangar.)

(Notice the torn wallpaper inside the house… I had a mishap with Yes glue. Fixing that and finishing the papering is next on my “to do” list.)

Next came the door pieces. Some of the outer layer of wood came off the back of one of the door pieces when I punched it out. It’s not terribly noticeable, but you can see it if you look closely at where the two pieces meet (where the window fits in). I just have to console myself by thinking that most people won’t be staring at the house from an inch away the way I usually do!

Another great reason to visit the hangar — to borrow Geoff’s C clamps!

While the glue on the door was drying, I smoothed out the inside of the doorway with woodfiller and then painted it to match the trim.

And, I also took this opportunity (drying glue) to paint and glue on the piece of trim I bought to cover up the “crack” where the top and bottom parts of the front wall visibly meet (because I left off the porch roof).

Unfortunately, when I glued this on I didn’t use a ruler, so it went on crooked. I didn’t notice until the glue was mostly dry, so when I tore it off some paint came up too. This means sanding and repainting before I glue it back on. ;) That’ll teach me not to use a ruler! (Or maybe not.)

Before we left the hangar, I sanded around the edge of the door and it fits well now. The next step will be to apply woodfiller to the edge to make it smooth, then paint it, then put the door in place. I’ve had frustrating experiences with hinges before so I’m not exactly looking forward to that.

Back at home, I finished the shingling. Here is a picture of the front of the house.

The porch fence is not permanently attached… it keeps breaking off when I glue it. I might try to stick nails up through the porch, into the posts. Also, the piece of trim across the center of the house is held on with fun-tac right now because I haven’t glued it back on yet.

Next up: finish the wallpapering and the front door, get the back roof up and shingle it, and finish the little bits of trim. Almost there!