Coming Down and Heading Out

Normally, I would decorate the outside of a house first, then work on the interiors.  Given the tiny size of this house (in 1/48th scale) It was necessary to decorate the rooms as they were assembled.  With that done it was time to move onto working on the exterior at last.  Well, almost.

First I built a box from more 3mm balsa wood to sit under the house and create a basement to house the "service" areas of the house.  The base is 5mm thick for a little extra strength.  By making my own stairs for the main level of the house, I had one of the two staircases in the kit designed to match the house left over and this I used in the basement.

The largest room in the basement will be the kitchen.  To be honest I haven't completely decided what purpose the remaining three rooms will serve yet.

 Once the basement was constructed, it was time to decorate the outside of the house.  The walls are painted in a lavender grey paint with the roof and trims in a slate grey.  For a change I knew exactly what colours I wanted to use before I started painting and even more rare managed to mix exactly the right colours.

The side extension wings have fixed, non removable roofs made of stiff cardboard.  They are basically a pyramid shape with the top point cut off.  I bought some French door kits from Petite Properties that match the front door that came with the kit  on the extensions and added a balcony on each upper floor.  The balcony railings are lace painted to match the rest of the trim on the house.

 The one thing I have found that I don't like about this kit is the way the roof sits on the top floor.  As you can see in the photo you can see the edges of the inside floorboards when the roof is in place.  I need to think of a way to add some trim to cover this up.  I also need to find a way to hold the front panels in place more securely than just sitting them in place as they are now.

As I forgot to include a photo of it last week (and I think it looks really worth showing off) this is the Drawing room with ceiling installed.

 The exteriors still need a little work such as a step outside the ground floor doors on the extensions but the house is nearly ready to enter a more terrifying stage: furniture making!