This roof is extremely complicated to complete, so you have to work in organized steps and give yourself a few days for completion.
First, you have to install the roof supports. Glue them in place at the wall slots as indicated in the instructions. You will have to wait for the glue to completely dry, preferably overnight, before you can move on to the next step. These roof supports are quite delicate because not much surface area is holding them up against a vertical wall. They then have to hold up various components of the roof, with no other support. So, use plenty of glue and do not skimp on the waiting time for it to dry.
After the supports are dry, you can fill in the gaps around them with spackle and paint them. Even though these supports will be mostly hidden from view by the roof, they will be visible if you look up from the porch, to the underside of the roof. You do not want anything unfinished to be visible, so make them look nice since you have complete access to them now. If you don't and they look terrible later on, you will not have easy access to finish them properly with the roof in place. It's better to be safe than sorry and put in a little extra work now.
While the paint of the porch roof supports is drying, you can go ahead and paint the vergeboards because they must be finished before they can be installed. They need to be painted on the front and back.
Install these finished vergeboards as the instructions indicate. You will need a mallet to tap them in place. Now you can appreciate why it was so important for the supports to be completely dry before attempting this. It takes some force to get these vergeboards in place.
After the vergeboards are in place, instead of applying the vergeboard trim, I am going to install the roof instead. It's just easier this way for me. The underside of the roof must be painted and finished before it is installed. Again, you will need a mallet to get the tabs into the slots. The corner pieces will fit just like puzzle pieces.
Your porch roof will most likely be crooked at this point and if its not, then my hats off to you. The reason it's crooked is because the roof panels can be warped, there is a slight difference in the size and shape of the roof supports and/or the tabs they go into can be out of alignment. Remember, these dollhouses are not made with exact measurements. These little inconsistencies become noticeable as more items are added. In my porch roof, the front wall roof is slightly lower than the side wall. Don't worry about it. The trim that goes on next will cause the roof to appear straight.
The porch roof top trim trim goes all the way around the porch roof, along the edge and you will position it to make your roof look straight. I am going to be applying a back cover to this dollhouse and for this reason, I had to modify my porch roof top trim by cutting off the right side overhang that goes under the bedroom opening. You also have to dry fit this trim multiple times and sand the porch roof corners until the trim fits flush against the edge of the porch roof. You must finish this trim and the edge of the roof before installation. I painted my roof a charcoal color, before installing the trim, as a base coat because I will be applying a texture to it later on.
Apply the roof top trim and it dry completely before moving on.
Now, I am ready to apply texture to the roof. I recommend that this roof be textured or covered in some way because it will be very difficult to make it look smooth with just paint. It has a lot of bumps and edges protruding from the different parts of it that are joined together.
I had thought about using sandpaper but the roof is quite large and I would have to patch several sandpaper pieces which do not patch very well and will be very noticeable on a large area that is directly in front of the dollhouse. I had also thought about textured paint but the roof is in place and the dollhouse is finished on the interior, so spray painting is no longer an easy option.
I resorted to my trusty spackle texture, which I have used before in various other applications. I used masking tape to tape off the roof trim and walls of the dollhouse surrounding the roof. I don't want this texture to get on these surfaces but I also want to make sure any gaps, between the roof and trim and roof and walls, are filled with the texture.
Then, just mix spackle with acrylic paint, in a container, and when applied it creates a textured surface. I like to spread the mixture with a paintbrush, sort of like how you would spread stucco. Then you can use the bristles of the paintbrush to dab the applied mixture and create texture. If you get a lot of bumps, you can lightly press a foam brush on the surface of the application to smooth it out a little. The texture hides all of the roofs imperfections. Let it dry overnight.
By morning it should be thoroughly dried and you can just peel off the masking tape. Touch up the walls and trim as needed.
Now comes the most confusing part of these roofs. There is a roof trim that goes along the edges of the roof top trim. It creates an overhang and makes the roof appear thicker than what it is. I stained mines to match the roof top trim. You can see in the photos exactly how this trim is positioned.
