Sometimes breaking something makes it better. I learn this lesson over and over, working on dollhouses.

One short day after posting about the front door pediment I made for the Victorianna, I destroyed it. I was checking to see how it fit into the hole I cut into the siding, and pressed on the center piece too hard. The only points of contact were where the spokes touched the arch — not very secure.

I tried to glue it back together and failed miserably. Luckily I have another $2 flea market window so I could make a new one. But first, looking at the arch I was left with, I started thinking about what else I could do with it. I dug through my stash and found this resin embellishment.

(This came on a card with a circular embellishment I’m planning to use as window trim on the Elizabeth Anne. I’ll get around to that kit when the Victorianna’s finished… someday.)

With a little trimming, I could make the embellishment fit inside the half circle of trim.

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I’ve been doing small stuff on the Victorianna that hasn’t really been blog-worthy, including a lot of thinking and looking at pictures to figure out how I want to handle the porch. Like with everything else in this house, I’m not following the directions.

CatColorado’s Victorianna gallery on the Greenleaf forum has some good pictures of how the porch roof is supposed to be assembled. The porch roof wedges up against the tower in a way that crowds the windows, which I’m not crazy about since I want to add lots of frilly embellishments to the bay windows.

Looking at pictures of real Victorians got me thinking about turning the porch roof into a second story balcony so I can have more pretty railings and trim. I did the same thing on my Fairfield, leaving off the roof pieces so the intended base of the first story porch ceiling became a second story porch floor.

I made that decision near the end of the build, when it was too late to add a balcony door. With the Victorianna I still have time to add a door.

Here’s the front of the house before I made any porch modifications. The porch roof assembly has a bottom piece with tabs that fit into the open slots, including at the base of the triangular support piece. There’s also a top piece rests on the slant of the triangle.

Geoff used an oscillating multi tool to cut off the triangular support, and to enlarge the window hole into a door hole. This gives a nice view of the stairs I worked so hard on. Notice the slot about an inch under the door. This is where a tab on the bottom porch roof piece would normally fit. Keep that in mind for farther down in this post.

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