Attaching dormers

Yesterday I decided to glue on dormers. I am far from finished with my previous tasks, but I like some variation, and with the dormers attached there will be a bit more finished look to the house.

It turned out to be consideraboy less straightforward than I had anticipated and than the instuction says, which is "glue and fut dormers". I left dormer assembly at the stage when sides were glued to fronts. When I started glueing roofs I realised that I had painted them grey on both sides, but of course the part of the roof on the inside had to be white.

 

This wasn't a big deal, but still took some time. I considered putting in some wallpaper to match each room. But then of course the roof itself is white on the inside (so far - I may add roof beams) so it didn't work. I am now glad it didn't because it would have made the whole project a disaster. Sometimes it's good not to be too ambitious.

Then I had to decide whether to take off the roof from its hinges and work on a table or try to do it balancing on kitchen steps. After a brief attempt with the latter I decided on the former. It has been a while since I occupied the dining-room table.

Let me remind you that I made the roof slates myself. What I hadn't thought about then was that I would have to glue on the dormers, and they would have to be glued on the roof itself rather than on card slates. Therefore I had to cut about 0.5 cm around the openings, and that wasn't easy because I had used very good glue!

For glueing on the dormers I should have been an octopus because it was hopeless to get them straight. Lots of patience and masking tape. Then it turned out that there was a triangular opening at the bottom of the dormer, where logically a window sill should be. Luckily, I can make window sills, but this is clearly a manufacturing fault.

 

There were also gaps at seams, but there always are. That's when I was glad I hadn't tried wallpaper because it would have been ruined anyway. I covered the seams with filler and sanded it smooth.

Then I made the window sills. Once again, I think they should have been included in the kit.

I made a mistake with the first one: I glued it to the edge of the opening, but of course it had to be 90 degree to the wall. Lesson learned (long ago): with repeated actions, try one first.

Then finally, I could put then roof back onto its hinges. I was a bit nervous, but it went well.

So this whole process, described in the instruction as "glue and fut dormers" took me about twelve hours. I just cannot imagine how I would have done all this if I had assembled the house before decorating.

On the window sills, I can put flower pots or ornaments, not too heavy and unbreakable, because even if I use super-superglue I wouldn't trust it to hold. Something like this, for the nursery:

 

And in the evening, it will look like this:

 

I was right: it does look more finished. But far, far from finished yet.