Roof colour

I think I am just about there on the roof colour. Starting with a basecoat of Anita Rust Red, I washed over a thin coat of Anita Chocolate Brown. I then shaded under the shingle lines with Anita Hunter Green watered down. Since taking this photo I have also highlighted the upper edge of the shingle line with Games Workshop Foundation paint in a light red. I picked out the line of fishscale shingles in watery Hunter Green.

As you can see, despite best efforts, I have managed to get quite a bit of paint onto my blue trim, so the next job is to go back and touch up the blue and green paintwork.

Shingling finished, now deciding roof colour

The shingling is finished, and I could finally sweep away the kazillion little bits of shingle and splinters and sawdust littering my work area. It looks like a house now, and I feel like the end is in sight, even though there is still loads to do.

I have about three-quarters of a sheet of shingles left, even after wasting about a sheet on my false start, so there are plenty of shingles in the kit. In fact, I also found some more clapboard in my box which I had thought was shingle, so I had more clapboard left over than I thought also.

Now I have to decide what colour to paint the roof. I've put on a starting coat of Anita's Rust Red but I don't want this to be the final colour, it is too orangey and too much like the foundation. I'm not sure whether I want to go darker, or lighter. I've taken the left over shingles and mocked up a bit of 'shingled roof' on a scrap bit of MDF board, and I will try out a few paint possibilities on that. I want something that will look realistic, but also contrast with the blue and green colours. I am tempted to pick out the fishscale shingles in a different colour, but I did read that that wouldn't be historically accurate. I might do it anyway.

Right mansard roof shingled

Right mansard roof is now shingled. I introduced two rows of fishscale shingles for some period interest, and again used the cardboard shingles on the corners. On the back I shingled up to the level of the fascia board, then stopped to give the illusion that the fascia board continues around the back of the roof. I've bowed to family pressure and moved the house onto the small picnic table so that the family can have the dining table back. The red colour is only a base colour, I will be adding further washes over the red.

Top roof shingling done, and main roof fascia

As my family are getting increasingly fed up with having the dining table tied up with my Willowcrest building project, I have been pressing on with the shingling. The top roof is now done (apart from final painting). As you can see in the 'before' picture, I used the Greenleaf wooden shingles for the main panels, but finished the ridges with cardboard shingles from Bromley Craft Products which bend easily and look realistic when painted. I used pre-painted shingles in places that were touching up against other finished paint work, then gave the whole roof a base coat of Anita's Rust Red when finished. Once the mansard roof is also shingled I will be darkening and toning down this red colour.

In preparation for shingling the mansard roof, I have also glued on the main roof fascia board. This went on fine, I only had to adjust the shaped end to fit around my clapboard a bit better, and I am doing a bit of filling on the exposed ends.

Next step will be mansard roof shingling, and after that perhaps I can return the dining table to the family and use the picnic table instead.

Shingling

Now that the clapboard is finally out of the way, I have turned my attention to shingling the roof. I am using the thin shingles that come with the kit. The instructions advise you to draw lines on the roof at a set distance, and they warn that when the roof encounters another roof line, the angle will be different. The instructions say to continue the previously drawn lines across the new roof angle, although the gap between them will now be different.

Well, I decided to start with the top roof (where the chimney is), thinking that it will be easier because it is at a shallow angle and fairly simple in shape. I shingled up one narrow end, and then started across the back. I was dismayed to find that the rows of shingles on the back side were not matching up at all with the shingles on the side roof, even though I was butting up to the lines I had drawn. I had to remove the shingles from the back roof, which destroyed them so hopefully there are extras in the kit. I know it is something to do with the differing angles but I can't get my head around the problem. So I am drawing new lines that match up to the first shingled side, one row at a time, and checking each time to ensure that it looks ok visually. It is a bit of trial and error but I am slowly getting there. The tip in the instructions to put masking tape on a row of shingles works really well, and I am finding that I can easily trim them with scissors. The pic shows some masking tape on a pre-painted sheet of shingles, before I cut them into strips.

I've also painted my foundation, and finished painting the porch, and installed my cellar windows. I decided that I don't like the acetate windows that came with the kit, mine are really scratched because they were just kicking around with all the shingles and clapboard inside the box when I opened it. And they look really shiny and unrealistic. I've got some heavy vinyl so I cut some of that to replace the cellar windows. Not sure what I am going to do for the main windows.

I finally finished the clapboard!

I glued the last two small pieces of clapboard on this morning, and it is finally FINISHED!!! I can't believe how long it has taken, this was a supremely fiddly job and I am now sympathetic with the builders who just stucco the whole outside of these houses. It looks really good though, and I am very pleased with how the house is looking so far. I need to go back and touch up the paint job here and there but overall it is getting close to being finished.

I was fairly miserly with my use of the Greenleaf individual clapboards that came with the kit, re-using shorter pieces whenever possible. After clapboarding all four sides, I have leftover 14 whole sticks, and a handful of shorter bits, so there is enough if you re-use everything that you can. I kept a Tupperware for all the really short pieces, which you sometimes need to fit into odd cracks around the window mouldings etc. I think I used up about 3.5 travel-toothpaste-size tubes of solvent-based glue to do all four sides (like QuickGrab, UHU, Bostik etc.).

I appealed on the Greenleaf community board for tips on how to shape the clapboard around intricate window mouldings. On my own, I had come up with pressing a stick of BlueTack (an office product, like a sticky clay for sticking paper to walls) around the moulding to take an impression, then tracing around that onto a board. A very clever suggestion from the group was to run a compass point along the moulding edge, while the pencil end simultaneously traces the shape onto the board that you hold up in the correct position. My cutting shears were invaluable for quickly snipping straight cuts into the boards, and I used an X-Acto knife for curved cuts. My Dremel tool with a medium sanding drum was also useful for shaving off small amounts for final fitting, particularly from curved cuts. I pre-painted all the boards, and before applying each board, I touched up any raw wood showing from being trimmed. I also painted a narrow band of the clapboard colour around all mouldings so that if there were any gaps at the ends of boards showing through to underneath, it was less obvious.

Mochas Mom - question re hinging

Mochas Mom, your profile is set to 'no reply/no access' so I couldn't email you re your comment. Here is my answer to your query re hinging doors:

Thank you! I love this house, it is such an attractive design. Because I have converted the house to be a shop (store), I actually only have two hinged doors. There is the main front door, which is a commercially purchased set of French doors with the grille removed, so it comes already hinged. The other is the bathroom door. Because the kit door is so thick, and got even thicker when I applied coffee stirrers to give a panelled effect, I hinged the bathroom door with the pin method. I drilled a small hole at the top and bottom, near the corner, and glued in a sewing pin, then cut the sewing pin down to about 1/4 inch. You need to round off the hinge edge of the door for this to work, so it will open smoothly. Then I drilled a corresponding hole in the floor for the bottom pin to fit into, and a slot into the top of the door frame (hidden by the door moulding) for the top pin to fit into. To mount the door, I just pushed the bottom pin into the floor hole, then stood the door up so the top pin went into the slot. Then I glued on the door moulding to hide the slot. The door pivots on the pins. If you didn't round off the hinge side of the door, then the corners of the door would bind and it wouldn't pivot properly. They do make small brass hinges but I felt it would be too difficult to try to attach them.