Learning from mistakes

Finally, after a series of weekends devoted to other things, I have taken the decisive step. Yes, I am re-assembling and glueing the shell. No, I haven't finished decorating the interior walls. I am glad I haven't because I have discovered some serious faults in my planning. If you have read my previous conceited posts about how clever I was to decorate everything before the final assembly you are now probably smiling to yourself and saying: "I could have told her!" So - why didn't you? But I remember a friend from a Facebook group saying cheerfully as I was embarking on this project: Don't worry, you will make mistakes and wish you have done things differently. 

They are not fatal mistakes. I haven't damaged anything, and I haven't injured myself in the process. But I am really, really glad that I am doing it on my own, because the mistakes are embarrassing.

If you have followed my project, yo may remember how proud I was of decorating flat surfaces. What I didn't take into consideration was something absolutley obvious in hindsight: on every edge there is a half centimeter that goes into a groove. And of course it won't fit into the groove if I have painted or wallpapered. Grrr... never mind. It just took me some extra hours. And I realised that the floor won't fit where I have put in doors in interior walls. Grrr... So actually people who said, Assemble first, were right. No, not really. I still think it was right to decorate as much as possible on flat surfaces, but I just went a bit too far over the possible.

Following the instructions, I first glued the side walls, back wall and roof. This is definitely not the order I used when I first dry-assembled the shell so I am glad I eventually received those instructions. Now it seems logical to do it this way. I left it overnight to dry, and today, after hours of swearing and sanding and swearing and scraping I put in the interior walls. I must admit: they still do not quite fit, but there is nothing I can do about it. I will just have to sand away the faults.

My neat edges and corners are in tatters, but I will trim them tomorrow. There are some scratches (yes, I hear you say: "I told you so!"). There are some unfinished details that are more visible now than they were when everything was temporary. Now is the time to tidy up as I go. Front edges, for instance. I don't even know whether they should be white or any other colour or various colours to match the rooms. I haven't thought that far. Now I will have to.

I am glad I have made this progress because I had to take this step sooner or later, and it is already considerably later than I had planned.

Anyway, this is the result.