We have now moved on to the top roof of the dollhouse.
This attic area is very tricky and hard to finish. Because of this, I am going to deviate from the instructions in order to make the finishing of the mansard panels and rooms, a lot easier. The best way to achieve this is to leave the flat, top roof off for as long as possible. You will also have to work in segments for a few days. Allowing the glue drying time is a must before you can move on to the next step.
I first installed the roof supports. Glue the roof supports to the floor only, do not glue the tops. These roof supports must be installed prior to the addition of flooring. You must apply any flooring around them unless you are using paper flooring. If you're using paper flooring, you can install it first but you will have to be very careful with it as you glue the supports onto it. Use tacky glue only because it dries clear.
It is very difficult to know, at this stage, what will be visible from the interior of the dollhouse, once the roof is in place. So, my suggestion is for you to finish every area, as if it will all be visible, in order to avoid disappointment later. Once the top roof is fully in place, your access to certain areas in this attic will be very limited. As you can see, I have finished the roof supports by staining them. I will also be staining all of the visible interior of the vergeboards before I apply the mansard panels later. All of this must be done before the top roof goes in.
After the roof supports are in place, I installed the door in the center, third floor partition. Being able to reach in from the top of the dollhouse is making this a much easier process. After the door was in place, I added trim all around it.
I made sure that I had painted the floor with a similar paint as my flooring and I began applying the floorboards. Again, this is very easy to do without the roof on. I think it be would have almost been impossible to accomplish with the roof on because of the inaccessible corners behind the roof supports. At first, I thought that the flooring would not look very good because of the roof supports being in the way but it turned out great. Much better than I thought.
I added baseboard trim all around the attic walls, once the flooring was in place. I also added trim to the stairwell top, as I had done for the second floor.
I applied the top roof vergeboard to the roof supports. I also applied the final vergeboard and the vergeboard trim to the back of the dollhouse. They had to be modified, by trimming them down a little, because of the back cover I plan on installing later.
