Just like in my first Beacon Hill, I will be making this a window. You have to decide what color you want it to be. All of these window parts have to be painted completely before they are assembled. You have to paint front, back and all edges, even if you think they will be hidden. You do not want for any bare wood to show when you are looking through your window. After all the paint was dry, I started by assembling the cases where the plastic windows go. I assembled the two sides and the door and used binder clips to clamp them, sandwiched together. I assembled the exterior trim separately. I also used binder clips to clamp them together.
After they were dry, I fitted in the three casings, sides and door into the opening. Thankfully, they went in very easily. I had no need to use any type of force or hammering. They went right in and completely flush with the walls. This is great news because this window is the whole focal point of the dollhouse when looking at it from the front. It must come out perfect. After they were perfectly aligned, I glued the whole assembled trim over them. Fit it so that it's perfectly even with the casings. I loved the way it came out. The siding posed no problems in installing this window so I’m thinking that I won't have any problems with the rest. I installed the interior trim as well.
I continued working on the vertical trim. The trim creates a notch or groove on each corner. It's suppose to be that way. To smooth out your notches, in case they have gaps, spackle them until they are nice and smooth. I spackled mines and I also spackled the mansard vertical trim joints. You can make a square corner without notches by overlapping the front trim to the side one. I opted to do that on my first Beacon Hill.
Since I’m back on the mansard roof, I began putting in the horizontal top trim. No matter how well you put this trim on, it always leaves a kind of rough look where it meets the vertical trim. I spackled it and painted it but I’m not going to become too overly concerned with it because I plan on putting decorative trim over it. The trim I plan to use has small holes you can see through. This is why I am putting on the dollhouses vertical trim anyways, despite the fact I will be covering most of it. That way when you look through the holes, it will be white back there and not look like there’s some gap behind it especially over the vertical trims.
You have to lay all of this trim down before you shingle. Once it's dry, I took the paper templates I had made of the mansard roofs and put each one over them to see what needed to be trimmed. I creased around them, centering the window opening with the windows. I then cut off the excess and got perfect templates of the roofs.
These paper templates will be transferred to brown paper from grocery bags. Once I transferred them, I again dry fit the new patterns to make sure they were perfect and they were. I painted the bottom edges of the transfers with brown paint. I am not going to turn upside down the first row of shingles to achieve a straight line this time. I am going to leave them as octagons so there will be little areas that will show through. I thought the brown paint would cause a decorative effect with the light brown shingles. I glued the shingles on with hot glue.
I then stained them with the same stain I used on the interior floors and glued the entire pattern, after it dried, with tacky glue onto the dollhouse. Make sure you clamp well around the dormer window openings. I’m shingling before I put the dormer windows on. I plan on having nice and neat dormer windows by placing them over the shingles. The shingles will not interfere with these windows since they are mostly assembled away from the mansard roof.
I shingled the front of the dollhouse today. I installed the trim around the kitchen bay and the back edges of the main walls.
