The roof of this dollhouse seems to be very elaborate and a maze of parts but in reality there aren’t that many parts to the roof at all. There are a lot of pieces that are interconnected to each other causing them to appear like several smaller pieces.
The first thing you want to do is to dry assemble the entire roof. Use masking tape to hold the pieces together. Do the entire dry run of the assembly until you understand how the pieces go together and in what area they will have to be finished. This is important because you need to know what panels make what walls in which room so your wallpaper patterns match up as this whole roof needs to be wallpapered and/or painted before installation.
The dry assembly will also help you know which panels must go in first so the rest will fit. The instructions are extremely confusing so it's best to get hands on knowledge for this.
This attic has three room areas in it. You can make it all one room or two rooms but there’s just so much real estate up there that you might as well get the most space out of it as possible.
After the attic is dry fitted, mark with a pencil what wallpaper each panel will need and on what side.
Now a small tidbit on wallpapering. The attic on this dollhouse is huge. Even when you divide it into three rooms, your going to need double the amount of wallpaper per room than you would need for normal three sided rooms. I suggest six sheets per room especially for the room over the guest bedroom with the two closets.
I went ahead and decided to wallpaper the gables and paint the roof panels, because I just didn't have enough to wallpaper every area.
I marked with a pencil, what color each panel would be, depending on what room they were in. I then primed all the gables and wallpapered them with the pattern that I want for that particular room.
I suggest that you now, also, make your shingling templates. This dollhouse is too large for you to crease the paper on each roof panel after it's built. You can always dry fit them later, before shingling, to test the fit and trim them where necessary.
I then painted each panel according to the color I wrote on them. Notice that you have to make sure you paint your eaves the color you want them to be now because later it will be more difficult. I then let all the panels dry.
Notice my faux attic door that’s suppose to go to the gazebo. Well it has to be modified. I kind of thought this might happen because the roof line is pretty low on it. I took off the trim from the top and I’m leaving it like it is for now but later, after the roof is in, I’ll fix it.
After the panels are dry and I trimmed off all the excess wallpaper from all the gable edges, I began installing the panels. I suggest you follow the instructions carefully when doing this so you don’t get yourself into a pickle. Remember that certain panels must go on first for the rest to fit properly. I didn’t have to read the instruction when assembling mines because I already know how these roofs go on and which parts should go first. Notice my pictures and the order I did them in.
Once the middle roofs are in, you can put the gable roofs in any order you want.
My roof panels went on without a single glitch. I didn’t even have to strain for them to fit. All of the tabs went into the slots like butter and with correct alignment. That’s how you know your dollhouse is straight. If you reach the top and everything aligns right, then your dollhouse is completely straight from the foundation up.
Clamp everything well. Make sure all your joints are tightly together and straight. Also check for any drips.
I’m leaving my roof clamped all night to dry and tomorrow I'll continue working on it.
