I also touched up and finished the dormers by adding flowers and decorative trim to the flower boxes. I like filling my flower boxes with a little cotton, to create a base I can stick the flowers into. I then glue the flowers to the cotton. If I ever want to change the flowers, I just pull them out with the cotton. The cotton keeps the flowers in place, without having to glue them directly to your dollhouse. You can find inexpensive, small flowers in the floral section of your local craft store, without the need to spend a lot on expensive miniature flowers.
I brought a little of the copper detail to the dormer roofs by applying a strip of the quarter scale shingles along the top roof edge, painted copper.
Shingling
I went ahead and began shingling the dollhouse. It is hard work so I did a panel every few days. I use hot melt glue to attach my shingles. There is no need to suffer with other types of glue. Shingles are not a load bearing structure of the dollhouse.
I painted my shingles charcoal. When your painting or staining your shingles with a dark color, there is always the issue of raw wood peaking through, between your shingles. Even when you use a dark base, like the black poster board I chose, you can still see the raw wood of the bottom shingles underneath the lap of the top shingles. You can avoid this by painting or staining your shingles before installation.
I can not imagine having to paint each of these shingles one by one so I fix this issue the old fashion way. I use a thin tip paint brush and paint between any shingles I see raw wood at. It is time consuming but at least I am not fusing with a million painted shingles, that need drying time, weights so they don't warp and I might end up not having painted all the ones I actually needed.
Another issue with shingling, is the same one you would encounter with siding, and that's making the lines match up at the corners. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how precise you are with your lap widths and measurements, the lines just do not seem to butt together at the corners. This is caused by minor inconsistencies in roof and wall heights. You don't notice it until you shingle or side. This is especially true with mansard roofs. They curve and some panels will have more angle to their curves than others. The shingles are all the same size so this causes discrepancies in the corners, where the shingle lines must meet.
Components like bays and windows also can throw your siding pattern out of alignment when they try to meet at the corners. Walls have corner trim that interfere with this being a visible issue but some mansard roofs do not, like with the Willowcrest model. You can create your own mansard corner trim but I like to keep the dollhouse as close to its original design as I can.
Just do your best to have the shingle lines meet at the corners but don't freak out if they are off a little. There's really nothing you can do about it. If you force them to meet, then you might end up with a narrower row of shingles or siding at the top on each panel. Either way, there will be some inconsistency with the pattern. Do your best but when its all together, it won't be noticeable.
Exterior Chimney
Now that the interior chimney parts have been installed, the exterior pieces remain. These are easy to install through your already assembled roof. Just slide the pieces into the roof opening, glue and clamp them together until dry. Make sure that the pieces are not too long or they can damage the mural underneath.
You can hide any gaps between the chimney and roof opening with spackle or you can frame around the chimney with trim. I only had to use spackle.
I decided to finish my exterior chimney a little differently that the kit instructs. I used the same chimney pieces in the kit to re-create my own chimney top. I did a divided trim design, rather than all of the trim laminated at the top of the chimney.
I created texture for the chimney top using a mixture of spackle and paint. I then used my paint brush to apply it. I used the same brick printed paper that I used on the dollhouse foundation to cover the chimney bottom.
The flues are made from square dowels. I painted them black and then positioned them on the chimney top.
Cotton gives the appearance of smoke.
