A couple of months ago, Glidden did a promotion where you could get a quart of paint for free, no strings attached. (Well, you had to give them your address so they could send you the paint. Seemed like a fair trade.) I ordered Belgian Waffle, a perfectly nice peachy color, but somehow in the time that passed while I was waiting for it to come, my brain changed it into a shade of yellow, because that’s what I’ve been picturing the whole time I’ve been building the puzzle house. As it turns out, Belgian Waffle is NOT yellow and is, in fact, the same peachy color as the chip I saw on the Glidden website when I ordered it. Who would have thunk it?

After about five minutes of my brain going OMG, it looks like a Creamsicle!!!!, I got over my yellow-misconception and saw Belgian Waffle for the pretty, peachy color it is. Here’s the house with two coats of it.

There’s some wood filler on the porch that I covered up after taking this picture.

I did that on Monday. Today I picked up some gray paint for the trim. Since the door is wood and the windows styrene, I painted them all with a coat of Gesso first to (hopefully) end up with a finish that looks the same on all of them. Then I did one coat of the gray—I still have to do another coat to even it out, but here’s what it looks like. Even with the Gesso, the door came out a little more blue/gray than the windows, but I’m hoping that after the second coat they’ll look pretty similar.

All of the windows except for the bay came with a removable piece that will hold the clear plastic inside the window (you can see them at the top of that last picture). I’m planning to keep those white for the interior. The bay window doesn’t have a piece like that, so I taped the back to (hopefully) prevent the gray paint getting on the inside. We’ll see if it works…

Today I finished putting together the structure (minus the roof) and applied all the siding. Wasted a ton of blue painter’s tape, but with good results!

Thank god for paint cans and those little pinchy things…

Lo and behold, I have a little house!

It seems weird to me that part of the main roof peeps out from under the dormer roof at the bottom. I’m planning to shave off those corners. The roof will be shingled with leftovers from my Fairfield.

While the siding glue was drying, I applied some wood filler to the front base (but not the back yet). I’m going to use the drum sander attachment on the Dremel to round off the porch corners… at the moment they’re dangerously pointy!

Tomorrow I’m going to start painting. The roof isn’t glued on yet; first I want to paint the undersides of the eaves, which I’ll do at the same time I’m painting the house. I’m planning to use “Belgian Waffle,” a creamy/peachy color I got free from Glidden when they were doing a promotion over the summer. Haven’t cracked it open yet so I’m not positive what it’ll look like, but here’s the paint chip (if the internet is to be believed). I’m not sure what color the trim will be… maybe light blue.

I went back and forth on whether to include the porch roof, and have decided to include it. Since my siding covered up the slots the roof was supposed to fit into, I’m planning to glue some 45-degree triangular blocks to the back of the roof and side of the house, to hold it in place. It’s an untested method but I think it’ll work.

Here’s sort of how it’ll look. But centered on the door, and without my hand attached to it.

While the glue was drying I went through my bin of kits and pulled out a few Cassidy Creations pieces that I want to build for this house: a china cabinet and kitchen table for the kitchen, and possibly this armoire for the bedroom. (Not sure about that one – it may be too tall to fit against any of the walls, due to the slanted roof.)

I’m thinking this house will be somewhat old timey, with a 1930’s range and fridge. I’d really like to find some Shaker style ladder back chairs to go in the kitchen and did a little looking around online, but so far haven’t found what I want. For the bedroom, I’m thinking of the cottage bed. I haven’t had any great ideas for the living room yet, or the smaller upstairs room. I’m not sure if I want it to be a bathroom… seems like a waste of a room (how original can you make a bathroom?)

Coming next time… paint!