The House on the Hill kit was a gift from my husband for Christmas 2001. I unpacked it during Christmas vacation, but didn't get much further! Now it is May, and wanted a "before" picture. Here are the main pieces of the House on the Hill kit. In the background you can see the shipping box. Lower left is the main roof pieces, above is the bay window construction, upper top is the three main floors, upper right is the front steps and the base, right is the front dormer wall, lower right is the two main sides of the house, in the center are the two main faces of the house plus the attic floor.
Two days later I realized that my photo above did not have all the pieces - seems when I unpacked all the pieces over Christmas vacation I stashed the parts throughout the house - some items back in the original box, some items in the spare closet, some items stacked in the garage! Here is another shot with ALL the pieces, including the small filler pieces (on the mantel) and other pieces that were not included in the first layout: tower roof, wall dividers, porch floors, custom stairs, etc.
Kit bashing time! For some reason, I can't just follow directions, I need to satisfy some unnatural urge to tinker with the design. I probably won't stray too far from the original design (this is my first house ever!), but I am going to remove several room dividers (for larger rooms) and relocate a few doorways. The standing partition has the old doorway filled to create a solid wall. The lower partition will be glued next and a NEW entry will be cut to accommodate an interior double french door. When they are dry, I will use some spackle compound to fill in any hairline gaps and sand smooth. When I started this morning, I had some hallucinations that I'd have at least half of the kit already put together... instead I spent hours dragging out my dremel, two tool boxes, mini miter box and making a huge mess in our living room.
Planning second floor bathroom wall placement and where to cut the new doorway. This is where having some of the fixtures ahead of time is very useful. Without the actual pieces, I would have anticipated needing a MUCH larger bathroom space - and the pieces would have been dwarfed in the room. More importantly, the extra space is better used in the front nursery!
Pictured also on the table is the "completed" wall for the double french doors!
Here I plan approximately how far the door will swing inward against the wall (it will be even less once the door is inset) as well as pencil in a future mirror above the sink and a towel bar above the bathtub. I need to plan-bash a small window over the toilet/tub area. I tried a few arrangements until deciding upon this one.
The bathroom set by Marianne Modelle (Germany) is heavy cast iron and would take some work to break. I'm hoping to use beautiful and realistic miniatures that also could withstand some light (supervised) play from children. No chunky-furniture, but no priceless antiques, either!
A Saturday! Surely I could get a lot done today! I decided to glue and nail together the base, noting that it needed to end up square. Hmm. It was not a job for one person without the right tools. My first attempt to just freehand pound two end pieces together was a complete failure - uneven and misaligned with glue smeared everywhere picking up cat hair. Ugh. I dismantled it and decided to rethink my technique. A trip to the local hardware store and Voila! The double vise! The pony can hold two pieces at a variety of angles and leave hands free for pounding.
Finished based. I'm very very happy. A simple but satisfying victory.
What really needs to be done next is work out the electrical wiring and routing before any major construction can happen - so instead I glued together the 8 pieces to make the tower roof.