The Den of Slack

Last week I posted about wallpaper and wainscot in the Craftsman bungalow. I’ve been working on the roof and shingles in parallel.

The last thing I did before putting the bungalow aside for a year was to glue on the roof. At the time, it looked like this.

And this is what I’m working toward.

The kit didn’t come with siding for the triangular porch roof, but after looking at a bunch of pictures of Craftsmans, I couldn’t come up with a good reason to leave it bare.

I checked my ziplock bag of scrap siding and found some pieces that worked.

Here’s the dry fit.

The instructions got a bit wonky here. First you’re supposed to glue the two big roof pieces together at the peak, but don’t glue them to the house yet. Easy enough.

Here’s what the directions told me to do next: “With the painted triangle peak standing upright on its long side, glue the porch ceiling to the back of the peak.”

Okay.

And then: “With the two large roof pieces still sitting (but not glued) on the house, trial fit the porch roof on. … Glue the porch roof onto the house roof at the peak. (Do not glue it to the house.) Glue the peak/porch ceiling piece in under the roof, flush with the house edge of the porch roof. … Let the roof dry, making sure it does not stick to the house.”

In other words, the roof is supposed to be assembled as one unit — including the front part that sits over the porch — that can be lifted off the house. It does get glued on eventually, but I guess this is supposed to make decorating the inside easier.

Sure, let’s give that a try.

I did my best, but as you can see the angle of that roof and the angle of the triangular piece aren’t matching up. If I adjusted the roof pieces so they were flush on the triangle, then they didn’t meet up at the peak. And because they weren’t fitting together like they should, I was concerned the porch ceiling would turn out crooked. I tried taping it and crossing my fingers, but the pieces just slipped around and the glue made a big mess.

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