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 just did an impetuous thing.

I spent about an hour tonight applying a few strips of siding, waiting for them to dry a bit, and then applying a few more. As I was waiting for the glue to dry I got to thinking how much time applying this siding was adding to the building process, and how I’m sort of on a deadline because we’re all supposed to be building this Arthur at the same time, and how many hours this was going to add to my project — hours that could be spent in other ways. The more I thought about this, the more annoyed I got… at myself, for deciding to put on siding, at the siding itself for coming in separate strips, at the Arthur for being so damn cute it just NEEDED siding. And then, looking down at the siding I’d just spent an hour (today, plus two or more hours this weekend) applying… I started ripping it off.

Moments before my outburst — the house never saw it coming:

The stuff I’d glued on tonight came up easily. The rest was much harder to pry off. Wood glue is strong! I almost took my eye out with the utility knife. There are still a few strips clinging to the front of the house, that I haven’t managed to get off. I figured I should step away from the house. I can work on prying those last strips loose tomorrow.

Rampage in progress:

The wood is a bit worse for the wear, of course, and will need some sanding and possibly some wood filler to fix spots where I pried off the top layer of plywood along with the glue. But I will not spend umpteen hours putting siding on strip by strip, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson.

A few lessons, actually. One is that I am not a good person to apply siding strip by strip. I have used Houseworks siding before, the kind that comes in sheets, and even that annoyed me… but far less than gluing it on one strip at a time. I should have known, knowing myself as well as I do, that this was not something I’d enjoy… in fact, that it was something I would despise. It’s never good to force yourself to do something on a dollhouse… for it to turn into a chore. Remember: This is supposed to be FUN!

The second lesson, for which we’re all extremely lucky, is that you can do practically anything to a die-cut house and it’ll still come out okay. Glue pieces on, tear them off, shove too-big tabs into too-small slots, rip out stairs and windows and towers — die-cut houses are made for this type of abuse. My Arthur will be fine, without siding, and if it has a few scars it’ll wear them proudly.

Or maybe that’s just the adrenaline talking.

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!

So, I glued the gables on. Next step is supposed to be the porch but since I haven’t painted yet, that should come first. I decided to use siding on this house so obviously that has to go on before I paint. Of course, as I thought this through I realized I should have done the siding before adding the roof (or at least the gables) to make it easier to fit the siding on the triangular parts of the walls. Oops.

First, I used wood filler to seal up some cracks where the walls went together. There will be trim covering these on the outside and wallpaper on the inside, but I just wanted to make sure the cracks wouldn’t be visible from any angle.

Then I started my siding. I am using birch siding from Corona, which comes in individual strips. I cut several strips to size and started with the front of the house. The siding cuts easily with scissors. The edges can be sanded with an emery board.

I’m bad at drawing straight lines, so rather than draw guide lines on the house, I am using a 3/8″ wide piece of balsa to make sure that each strip of siding is the correct amount of space away from the one below it.

The strips are curling as I glue them on, so I am putting on a few, weighting them down with paint cans, and waiting them to dry before I do a few more. This is time intensive, obviously, but no more so than gluing on other pieces of the house. Next up, after siding: paint!

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!

Again, didn’t have any time to work on the house during the week. Now that it’s the weekend I’m hoping to get a bunch done. Didn’t get off to a good start though. The last work I did was on Tuesday, when I glued the left and right parts of the front roof onto the house. (I deviated from the directions a little… they say to put the second floor partition in first, but since I didn’t punch out the hole for the stairs, I didn’t have a slot to put the partition into. Gluing the roof pieces on provided some stability for the second floor partition.)

Last night (Friday) I glued in the second floor partition. Since I didn’t punch out the hole for the stairs, this meant I didn’t have a slot for the partition to fit into. So, I cut off the tab with my utility knife. Of course, this meant I was up against the same problem as with the foundation… gluing a very thin piece of plywood onto the floor. Then I made a little mistake. I glued the partition in backwards, so the sloped part was up against the wall rather than facing out. There’s no excuse for this… I just didn’t read the directions carefully. Last night as I was falling asleep it occurred to me that the sloped part should be facing out so it would butt up against the roof…

So, the first thing I did this morning was wiggle the partition out so I could glue it in again. The glue set nicely and it took a little work with the utility knife to get the wall out, but nothing got broken and it was relatively painless. Now it’s gluing in again… the right way this time!

I put the roof on the back temporarily, to help weight down the partition while the glue sets. Always knew Shakespeare would come in handy one of these days! [Note: I’m still making that Shakespeare joke ten years later. Har, har.]

When that has glued, I plan to move right to gluing on the gable roof pieces. The instructions say to glue on the back roof first, but I’m going to skip that for now. I want to wallpaper inside before I glue that part on.