The best spacer for your siding is a nail file. The plain cardboard Emory Board type. It's exactly half an inch in width and that's the true to scale spacing for a one inch dollhouse. Of course, it's your choice whether you want wider or narrower spaces. It depends a lot of on the style of the dollhouse.
In the last couple of days, I've put up all of the siding. On this dollhouse the siding has to go up to the soffits. There's no need to take it any higher because the roof will cover the top part.
I used Aleene's Fast Grab Glue. Yes, it will warp your siding but if you clamp it down with masking tape and don't touch it, the warp will soon flatten out. You might be tempted to use hot melt glue instead because it won't warp your siding and also dries fast enough so there aren't any shifts in position.
For this dollhouse, hot melt glue for siding is possible because you have to cut the siding around the windows rather than putting the windows over the siding. These windows are basic squares and cutting the siding around them is easy. As long as your components are not resting over the siding, hot melt glue is acceptable.
I still used Fast Grab glue though because it just makes the siding look better. Hot melt glue will keep your siding flatter against the walls, almost making the dollhouse appear to not be sided at all. I like when each piece of siding has some definition to it.
Notice that I glued all of the exterior trim for the windows down before siding but I left out the sills and sill trims. It's very difficult to cut siding around sills and sill trim so I suggest you glue those on after your siding is finished.
Take a look at the front of the dollhouse. I sided the bottom of the front wall, under the windows and then continued the siding on the top part over the windows. It is not necessary to side the areas between the door and windows or the sides of the windows themselves because the porch posts are going to go there and pretty much cover this whole area up.
The Brimbles doesn't have a foundation per say but I made it one anyways. I just think it looks nicer rather than the siding going all the way down and covering the base. I'll use spackle later on to make a rough, stucco like foundation for the dollhouse.
I finished the front steps. It's easier to assemble them with the dollhouse sitting upside down. That way you can get the sides straight under the porch floor.
The top back wall, which is really the large side wall since this dollhouse is open on one side rather than the back, is butted and joined to the bottom part making it it's full height. Once you have it on there, you just keep siding upwards so it appears to have been one whole wall from the beginning.
After I gave the dollhouse two coats of paint, I painted and glued on the soffits. These soffits are going to basically hold up your entire roof so you want to glue them in well before your ready to put the roof on so you know the glue is fully dry and they are sturdy enough to take the weight.
A good way to spackle up any gaps around the front door is to use a QTip. It goes into all the nooks and crannies where your fingertips might be too large to fit into. The cotton tips. It also smooths out the spackle just as well as your finger.
I also added the second floor foundation trim. I stained the interior side to match the rest of the trim work around the dollhouse. The only way to see it is if you look through the front windows but its nice to look into a dollhouse and see it completely finished, even in hard to see areas. The same goes for the back of the side walls. I wallpapered them so they match everything else when you look into the dollhouse through the windows.
