The past few weekends I’ve continued to paint the Turret House. I’ve also spent a small fortune on various trims and components to dress up the exterior. Here’s how it looks right now.

And a sneak peek of some of the trim. More details to come in a later post!

Many years ago I bought two pieces of Lawbre apex trim from the now (sadly) closed Shellie’s Mini Mania in San Carlos, CA. These are also available from Lawbre’s website. They’re 1:12 scale, but they work with this big gable.

My original idea was to tuck these under the shingles, which overhang the eaves by 1/4″. It didn’t occur to me until after I’d started down this path that this wouldn’t work, for two reasons. One, the right side of the roof opens, so the apex trim can’t be attached to the roof edge.

And two, when the roof is open there would be a big gap between the apex trim and the side of the house. Too precarious.

But the apex trim is slightly too big to fit under the eaves — the right edge bumps into the gable. I decided to cut off the end of the trim to make it fit.

I traced the trim onto a piece of paper, put the paper under the eaves, and folded the edge where it bumps into the gable roof.

Then I used this as a guide to cut the apex trim. I’ll need to cut it a little more once I’ve added shingles to the roof, but I don’t want to take off too much, so I’ll leave it like this for the time being.

However, this piece of apex trim is warped and doesn’t fit snugly under the eaves. (The other piece, which I’ll use on the back of the house, doesn’t have the same problem.) I already don’t have a lot of surface to glue this to, since I can’t attach it to the part of the roof that opens, plus if it’s flush with the front of the roof there will still be a gap between the trim and the house whenever the roof is opened.

Continue reading

Since my last post, I have spent a lot of time staring at the Turret House. It came with windows and exterior doors but no other trim, which I guess is good because I can make it look how I want. But I also have to try to figure out what the builder intended to do. It’s a challenge to complete someone else’s vision when I don’t know what that vision was.

The Turret House looked like this when I got it:

I already have several light-colored dollhouses, including the Victorianna, the Gull Bay, the Little Belle, and the Queen Anne Rowhouse. I want the Turret House to be bold. I did some searching and came across this inspiration house on Pinterest. I envision the Turret House being more red than this one, but I love the dark blue trim and the gold accents.

(I can’t figure out where this picture originated, to give credit for it. If you know, please post in the comments!) This is the Bair-Stokes House in Arcata, CA, built in 1888. PriceyPads.com has some historical pictures with other color schemes. I like the bold colors best.

While I was waiting for some orders to come in the mail, I started by staining the shingles with Minwax Ebony. I’ve always stained shingles before gluing them on, so the fact that the shingles are already attached made me nervous. I’m not complaining — gluing on shingles is tedious and I’m glad it’s already done! But stain doesn’t cover glue, so I wasn’t sure how they would turn out.

Not bad! There are some spots where the stain didn’t take, but I should be able to mask those with black paint or a wash.

I have to add shingles to the left side of the gable, but I’ll stain those before gluing them on. I’m not as neat with the glue as the person who started this house!

Continue reading