Usually with a die-cut house, if I’m using the windows that came with the kit I’ll apply wood filler to the inside edges of the window to smooth them out. I do this once the trim (either interior or exterior) is glued in and then carefully repaint, to give the edges plus trim a nice uniform surface. For the Victorianna’s bay windows it will be much easier to glue acetate to the outside of the window, so my plan was to add the interior trim and then use the wood filler to smooth out all the interior edges.

But because cutting out the window holes left some jagged edges on the wallpaper, I decided to cover the window edges with strip wood the same way I do with doors. This seemed like a better plan for a smooth finish, with less chance of getting wood filler and paint on the wallpaper.

I started by painting one long piece of 1/16″ thick stripwood my Tuscan Beige trim color. This cuts easily with scissors so I cut the pieces to fit each window, once the paint was dry. Here you can see the window on the right with trim installed, and the one on the left without.

With all three windows were trimmed out, I next added vertical trim at the sides of the arch. These are made from one piece of half scale door/window casing flush with the wall, butting up against piece of strip wood that covers the plywood edge. Once the glue dried I carefully painted over where the trim pieces meet, to get rid of visible seam.

(I had to use a larger piece to cover the plywood edge on the right side than on the left, to account for a gap where the walls don’t quite meet there. Because of the angle you can’t see this bay window head-on, so it doesn’t matter the trim’s inside edge is slightly larger on the right than on the left.)

With the vertical trim glued in, I measured and cut a header piece. I couldn’t come up with a graceful way to handle trim around the arch (and didn’t want to use what came with the kit) so instead I’m covering the arch to square off the opening.

I added crown molding around the top of the header. This is a different style than the crown molding I used in the room — I didn’t want the header to look like repurposed crown molding, but like a distinct element.

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With my new workshop complete, I can get back to work on the Victorianna. (Yay!) This house (and all the others) got packed up in September for my move to San Francisco, so it’s been a while.

When I left off I was working on the upstairs bedrooms. I want to finish the little girl’s room with the bay window, and also to get siding to the front of the house (I already did the back), so the next logical step is the bay window / tower.

I’ll probably bash the tower on the left side of the house, so for now I’m just doing the one on the right side to figure it out. (I stopped following the instructions long ago!) Here’s how it looks in dry fit.

My big quandary was how to do this in a way that wouldn’t be too hard to get my hands in to deal with wallpaper and trim. The tower pieces have gaps between them, so it would be best to wallpaper after assembly, but I had visions of making a huge mess trying to slide a piece of glue-covered wallpaper up behind the arch.

First things first. I cut out pieces of ceiling paper for the four bay windows from leftover scraps. (Remember: never throw anything away!) The ceiling paper I use is off a roll of textured, real life wallpaper that I bought at Lowe’s more than a decade ago and will probably last me the rest of my life.

I glued these in. You only see the ceilings if you go looking for them, but now they’re taken care of. I had previously painted the backs of the arches — they’re very hard to see through the windows, so I decided not to bother with wallpaper here.

Before gluing in the tower pieces, I painted around the inside edges of the windows with my Tuscan Beige trim color. I will probably add wood filler and another coat of paint once I get the interior trim glued in, but for now this is enough.

I glued them in with tacky glue, especially where the bottom meets the porch and over the tabs on the third floor. I didn’t want to glop on too much glue on the inside of the first and second floors because I already put in the hardwoods there, but the tabs and slots fit together nicely so I think this will hold okay.

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