Houseworks, LTD Garage Kit, a Perfect Fit

It's late April and we are supposed to be doing spring garden clean up, cutting back last year's canes on the roses, hacking away at the over grown ornamental grasses, raking away all the debris that blows in during the winter; instead I spent most of the last two day building this garage kit--only because we've had typical spring weather--cold and snowy. What can I say? It's spring on the Colorado Plains. 

I actually opened the Houseworks, LTD Garage box months ago and had it taped together sitting in place next to the Manchester Country Home. I even featured it prematurely in a post a while back. Now it is nearly completed.

The kit is easy to assemble, but does require patience and care when assembling the working garage door, the favorite feature of this single card garage. 

The kit comes with adequate instructions that are easy to follow, but I am a visual learner and would have appreciated some illustrations. Still I was able to follow the directions, instead of taking off on my own and missing an important step, ending up with a mess to fix. 

With a new layer of butcher paper on my work table, I laid out all the pieces and assembled the 3 paints the I'd use: Kilz primer for the base coat on both front and back side of each to the main building pieces. Next two coats of the tan semi-gloss interior/exterior house paint, a thick, rich creamy paint that goes on easily and dries quickly.

 

 

I like to purchase small sample cans of good quantity latex house house paint for the exterior of my miniature structures. I painted the window white and the door white and the blue that I used on the doors of the main house.

I as able to do the two coats of the tan yesterday then let the building rest. Today I painted the garage door, did some touch-up work on the door and window, and installed them. I did a test fit the the mustang then prepared to paint the garage door.

 

I gave both sides a quick sand and taped the windows on both sides. The kit directions say to paint the door on both sides at the same time to avoid warping. 

Note the wooden wheels on each side of the door. They will fit in the door frame.

The directions are easy to follow on how to install the track pieces. I did find that the placement of the tracks on either side of the opening had to be adjusted from the 5/32" from the edge to exactly on the inner edge of the opening. The photo shows the suggested placement of the track pieces, making the opening too wide for the wheels on the garage door to fit.

However, in this photo, the track pieces fit flush with the edge of the door opening. The wheels fit nicely between tracks, but as the directions caution, the wheels are delicate and require a gently touch. 

The interior garage walls will not be painted. Many garages are not finished inside, so these will remain "skim coated" as we find in our own garage. I did paint the inside of the door and the window just to give them a finished look. 

Now, dry fitted together, the garage takes shape. I have a bit of touch up work to do and I need to figure out lighting. I have on gold porch light like the 3 on the house, but I need to buy another one for a balanced look, but the lights are becoming so expensive. On the interior, with the garage door open, there isn't room for a centered ceiling light, so now I am rethinking the the entire lighting plan. I have a great ceiling light for the 2nd floor that I could hook up to a battery, so I may just go with that light. 

To finish the interior upstairs I need flooring and wallpaper. I want it too look rather rustic and masculine. It will be man cave, or in my family, we call it Outside Upstairs, which I'll explain in the next post. 

 

The garage will be a perfect fit for the vintage Manchester Country Home.  

Lighting or not? This morning, I'm leaning toward not. 

Come back next week to see what I decide.

Have a fabulous week. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers,  Ann

 

The Tale of Two Projects: Trials and Tribulations

 Murphy's Law says if anything can go wrong it will, and so it is in dollhouse building. I set out today to get the wallpaper installed in the Manchester Country Home attic, the last step before the floor goes in. As life goes, I was plagued with phone calls and text messages all morning: A friend just wanting to chat as she started her day, a daughter with some minor catastrophe, and a museum committee member working our museum web site. Finally, all the chatter and clatter stopped and I was able to get on with. my goal for the day.

Last week, I had a light meltdown--just minor mental issue when lights that worked the day before suddenly didn't. 

The only light that worked was the lamp plugged on the addition first floor living room.That room has only 3 lights: the lamp and two wall sconces. There are 2 other lights on this line, the front porch lights.  I narrowed the problem down to that line and short, possibly somewhere--but where? I was not about to start tearing out wallpaper to inspect all the connections.

Then ALL the lights failed. 😧

I began by bypassing the original connection, using 3 plug-in extension that will connect to a new place.  Nothing.

Next I began bypassing the tape wiring by using round wire and plug-ins on my little test board. Pretty messy and pretty ugly. 

But I was able to add back on-line the hanging light in the addition second floor and got the lamp in that room to work again. That line runs across the roof to the power source on the attic floor. 

But I did tear out wallpaper on this wall. Really, we should take lots of photos so that we can back and see what's behind the wallpaper BEFORE we cover it

.

Take a look at the light in the adjoining bedroom. It Never worked, so I took it down and replaced it. It's one that I made. Glue may have corrupted the wiring for it sort of fell apart when I tried to disassemble it. 

So  this long, sad saga it does have a happy ending. I just need to figure out how to hide my adjustments. 

The house looks pretty at night. I like the way the light comes through the skylight.

I replaced the bedroom light that failed with a little sconce that I made from a Bindel's Ornaments kit. I'm not very good at shaping the rounds on the end of the wires, but I decided to use it anyway because I like the bling.

BUT my lighting issues weren't over--this time, a not so mini meltdown.😖😣😩

What mess. I did conclude that because the house is made of MFD and not hard plywood, the brads are not held securely in place, especially on these exposed edge cuts because MFD is so porous.

Just by pushing on the pink connection, I was able to isolate the weak spot in this line. It wasn't a short, just a weak connection. To secure the connection, I cut a small pink square--copper--and pressed over the eyelet and wiring. Now the lights are no fail--fingers crossed, but who really knows?

Now, we move on to wallpapering.

We all agree that best time to  paper wall is before wood trim is installed. I generally wallpaper then add the doors and windows, so cutting a wall template of this odd shaped wall was a challenge.

But I eventually got a good fit.

Old wallpaper had to be cleaned off, so I used a mixture of about a cup of warm water with about a tablespoon of liquid fabric softer. Generally I spray it on, but given the small area, I dabbed it on with a foam paint brush and let it soak a bit and the glue dissolved nicely and released the scraps of paper. I secured the copper tape with Scotch tape to keep it from getting soaked.

I printed the sunflower paper in mat photo paper, making it a very thick paper, but it stands up well to the moisture from the glue, but it's not real pliable. 

For the attic wallpaper, I used scrapbook paper that is lignin and acid free. Generally I use a clear acrylic spray to protect the paper, but another disaster! The can of spay had sat for a long while in garage and when it sprayed out it spoiled the paper, so I had to reprint the sunflower paper and one of the odd triangles for the peak. 

It's a difficult cut and I was down the leftover scraps; fortunately, I had just enough to cut a new piece. The inset roof section was really had to access and Grandmother's wallpaper glue was really dense and didn't want to slip very well. On the larger flat surfaces, I used a wet foam brush to apply the dampened glue directly to the wall so that the wallpaper piece would slide into place. I didn't moisten the glue that went on the paper because I didn't trust it to hold up to the extra moisture.

 

 

The power strip on this floor supplies power to the bedroom lights (2) and the new ceiling light that I added to the bathroom. I cut the corner of the left wall so as not to paper over it. This junction, messy as it is will be hidden behind a roof piece and I'll build some sort of faux closet or storage to hid the mess. 

  

The attic is now ready for the floor.

As I prepare to stain the flooring, I use my test pieces to see which I like. Because the downstairs floors are stained with the one on the left, Puritan Pecan, I much prefer Golden Pecan, but to be consist with the other floors, I shopped for the Puritan Pecan and couldn't find it, so I had to use the Golden Pecan, which was my original choice but I used the wrong one on the first floors. UGH!

As well, this walnut wood is naturally darker than the first floors that were with an older kit.

There really isn't a lot of difference. Wood has such character that few other materials have. That's why I prefer it to all other types of flooring that are really are much easier to use than the real thing, but for me wood just makes the house feel warm and homey. 

Before applying the stain, I sanded the already thin planks with 120 course grit to take down any roughness in the grain then smoothed the planks with 320 fine grit sandpaper. 

After sanding, I wiped the floor down with rubbing alcohol to lift up the dust left from sanding, which revealed the character of the wood.

I applied the stain with a foam brush then wiped away the excess.

Look at that deep, rich color. Unfortunately as the stain dries, the glow will fade, but still the floor will be gorgeous--I think--especially I lay down a layer of Johnsons Wax.

The floor is now ready to attach to the 1.5 mm Circut brand chipboard. I still have to wax the floor, but will later. I am nervous about gluing it to the chipboard because in the paste the floors have buckled. Still I didn't trust double sticky tape because once something touches it, it is there. So tacky glue it is. I'll use the brayer to help encourage to two layers to adhere. 

There is plenty of tape to hold the chipboard pieces together. These are the 12x12 sheets that will make a sound backing for the floor that, as you remember, laid on scrapbook paper. 

In the moment of adding glue to the chipboard, I didn't want to stop to take photos. I drizzled plenty of glue on the chipboard, making sure to spread it well to the edges then I put the wood in place, and now it rests underneath some heavy reading.

A few hours later:

The floor meets all expectations. I had plans of using double stick tape to hold it in place, but at the moment it seem to lay flat and solid. I still need to stain the edge trim and will hold the edge trim pieces in place with sticky tape. 

So it took the the better part of the week to finish this project, so aside from some minor finishing touches, I declare the interior of the Manchester Country Home completed. 

To finish the house, the exterior trim needs to be glued in place, the electrical mess has to be concealed, and the roof in the back needs to be shingles then the entire roof needs paint or stain and then I can declare this house finished. 

I hope you have enjoyed this journey and learned a few things along the way. I will finish up posting on this house with a review of What Went Well and What Didn't, but I'll save that review for another time.

Enjoy Sunday and have a great week. Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers,  Ann