Painting windows: not my favorite thing to do. The Gull Bay has nine of them, plus the door frame, plus the three dormer windows I added to the back. I actually skipped the dormers with this batch for reasons I’ll explain below, but over Memorial Day weekend I forced myself to do the rest of them using an off-white paint named Raw Cotton that I’ve had a pint of for years and years.
A poor seal on the paint can has led to evaporation, which meant the paint was somewhat gloppy — making this process even more fun!
The three windows on the front of the house are the Victorian style, and the plexiglass slides out on a track. The rest of the windows are “traditional” style and the plexi is held in with little wooden sticks on the inside. (Joy, more pieces to paint!) I think this is my first time using this particular style of window, so I don’t know if they’re still like this or if the ones I got with the Gull Bay are an older version that’s since been upgraded to the plexiglass that slides out–a distinct possibility, since this kit is from the eighties or early nineties.
The sticks are slightly larger than the mullions that inexplicably come with Houseworks windows. (I say inexplicably because how often do people actually use those? I have *so many* leftover mullions.)
I thought the sticks would hold the windows in with pressure, but they’re not quite snug enough. I put glue only on the side that butts up against the window frame and not on the side that butts up against plexiglass, to prevent accidentally smearing it on the windows.
I really like the blue/gray shingles and decided to use that stain on the front door and shutters, rather than coming up with another accent color. One benefit of this is that it’s much easier to stain shutters than paint the slats nicely. The house only came with three sets of shutters, for the three Victorian windows on the front, but I decided to add them to all the windows — so I would have had 18 shutters to paint…
Staining these things can be challenging since there might be glue spots (not my fault, at least!) or the basswood just might not take stain evenly. I had to do several coats to get them to look more blue than see-through gray, but I do like how the wood shows through a little. The door and a few shutters had some stubborn spots that wouldn’t stain, which I hid by lightly dry-brushing on paint of a similar color.
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
