When your dealing with half timber trim that is put together by many pieces of vertical and horizontal trim, you may experience that some of the trim is either too long or too short.
On this dollhouse, you might find that the vertical trim on the tower or bays might be too long, depending on your tower and/or bay roof fit. You might also discover that the horizontal trim that goes between the vertical trim, on these same walls, might be too short to butt up against the vertical trim correctly, causing a gap.
If the trim is too long, simply cut to fit.
If the trim is too short, then you have several options you can choose from to fix it.
1. (Recommended) Buy basswood strips at your local craft store of the same width and thickness as the dollhouses trim and use it instead. Cut it to the length needed.
2. Use the trim as is and fill in the gap with spackle or wood filler. Wait for the spackle or filler to dry completely before attempting to sand it to match the trim.
3. Use the trim as is and fill in the gap with another piece of trim and then sand and spackle the joint to make it look like one continuous trim piece.
4. Use the trim as is and paint the gap to match the trim, creating an optical illusion like there is no gap at all.
I used method #4 for now but depending on how I feel it is truly hiding the problem, I might change it later. So far though, so good. I am having trouble trying to find where the gaps are so that's a good sign.
I suggest you apply your vertical trim first and then your horizontal. That way it's less confusing because your installing all of the trim marked #13, for example, and so there's less room for error. When installing the vertical trim around the bay and tower areas, install the horizontal trim before the glue of your vertical trim dries. That way you can shift the vertical trim to better fit your horizontal trim between them.
I installed some of the window trim and shutters.
I also installed the balcony floor and the stucco completely sealed up my slots for the floors tabs. I had to cut off the tabs and glue the edge of the floor straight onto the bottom edge of the door opening. That's okay though because the floor is supported by two brackets anyways, which I also installed.
You may notice some differences between the half timber trim on the dollhouse box photo and the illustration. This dollhouse no longer comes with trim for the bottom of the front bay and the bottom of the left tower wall. You can make your own with basswood strips or leave it as is. I might go ahead and make my own but if I decide to, I will leave it for later.
Always remember that when you plan on adding your own trim to your dollhouse, always do it last because some trim can affect the way parts will fit on your dollhouse.
