Doll Houses (1)

Front of house #2, (rear of house #1)

Earlier this year I bought six doll houses from Poundlandworld as I posted about here, the photograph shows the two different versions hinged together (notice the hinge).
There are two quite distinct versions, this one with the chimneys and the other one without, the latter was the version I would use for the 'front' of the first house.
The first task was of course taking the thing apart, filing off the hinge and removing the awful decals that were everywhere on the blessed things and stuck down with the most powerful glue known to man. I actually ended up using a scraper to remove them (a bit of one can just be seen as 'paving' in the photo).

Gutted interior

The next stage was gutting the two buildings, removing the fencing I wasn't going to use etc. I used a craft knife to score lines on the floors and then snipped off bits using a pair of pliers (not unlike nibbling at tiles). The many lugs that kept the roof securely screwed in place had to go and were also eventually cut off.

The small curved bits near the apex were to hold the rood in place but were eventually removed .
The whole model was of course filed down so that the ragged bits were less so .
The 'corners' of the upper floor were left to support a 'lift-out' upper floor that I'd make for each house. All the windows were easily pressed out as I didn't want them present when I was spray undercoating the model.

House#1undercoated.

The roof deserves a bit of a mention here, as the two halves had to be secured together (there's nothing worse than a lift-off roof that falls into two halves when you remove it). The roof ridge was reinforced with a strip of plastic (both the top and underside) whilst the chimneys had their fourth side built up from bits and pieces, The roof ridge finally had a bamboo skewer glued along its length for aesthetic purposes , but it probably also helps the rigidity of the roof. 
the two houses have very distinct features, the wall of one have a facade of brickwork whilst the other is timber planking.
To make the two houses I would be building out of four of the kits as different as I could, I would one as a stone=clad house and the second as a timber house.

House#1 spray painted

The house was sprayed with a "stone finish" type can of stuff I've had lying around for ages, it disguised the planking very nicely as I hadn't completely filed it all off.
The extended base was card covered in filler , the card extending under the original model for extra strength, by snipping off bits of the models base.
 When I'd got to this stage of the first house build I decided to start the second, which would be a completely planked version.

Rear of house #2

I used card and filler on the walls then scribed the planking onto the shell of the building.
The chimneys for this house were removed and the holes filled in with filler, ( to later have tiles scribed onto them).
The side walls on both houses were also a pain as the didn't quite match up so inserts of card were the order of the day to match them up.

Front of house #2

Front of House #1 alongside the originals

 

Side of house#1 compared to originals

You can see on the photograph to the left (side view of house #1 
House #1compared to original) how different the two original models are and what I did to alleviate the problem (card and filler).

House #1 'window side' compared the originals.

 Similarly with the other side 'window' where the differences were just as noticeable.

 Outside landscaping was of course flock. (quite possibly homemade, but the origins of it are lost to the annals of time - not that my memory is fading or anything)
 

Rear of house #1

I was pretty pleased with  how both these houses turned out and next week I'll show all the outside views of house #2 and relate the trials and tribulations I had making the internal bits.

Bonus rubbish picture

So that's it for another week, as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated and here's a bonus picture showing detail of the pile of rubbish at the side of the house that some of you may have noticed.