The other day I used the word “bashed” in conversation and the person I was talking to didn’t know what I meant. In case you’re not familiar, “bash” is short for “kitbash,” which is a phrase I first read in Nutshell News back in the nineties, and I’m sure it was around before then. It means modifying a kit or other component to use it in a way it wasn’t originally intended. I bring this up because today’s post is all bashing — a necessity in half scale, since our options for 1:24 windows and doors are so limited.

I recently finished the siding on the front of the Seaside Villa, but I couldn’t do the back wall until I figured out what windows and doors to use, in case the holes needed to be enlarged or en-smalled. The Majestic Mansions windows I’m using on the front of the house are pricey and also seemed a bit fancy for the back, so I decided not to go that route.

The door hole was about the right size for a Houseworks 4-panel exterior door. I like the idea of that, but I’m not a big fan of that particular door, which is flat on the inside and has raised panels on the outside. I wanted a back door with a window in it, which is incidentally available in 1:12 scale, but the only 1:24 Houseworks door with a window in it like that is the Palladian.

As luck would have it, I had a Palladian door. I removed the door and put the frame aside for some future project. (I have a door left over from another bashing escapade that I think will fit in the Palladian frame.)

I made a door frame to fit in the existing hole.

The transom is 5/16″ tall. I made a spacer out of scrap wood to ensure the bottom piece glued in straight.

And here it is with trim. I still need to add some pieces of wood to divide the transom up into panes, but I want to paint them before gluing them in, so I’ll add those later. Same with pin-hinging the door.

The 1:12 version of the Seaside Villa has half height windows on the back, and I wanted to do the same on my house. These rooms are going to be a bathroom and a laundry room, so they don’t really need full sized windows. Houseworks offers a four-light window, but it wasn’t the look I wanted.

Continue reading

I’ve never attempted to use clapboard on the octagonal portions of my houses — too many small pieces to cut and corners to make neat. On the Queen Anne Rowhouse, I just painted the wood. I would have done the same with the Seaside Villa, except I needed to fill in a portion of the door frame to make the front door fit, and that would have looked bad with paint over it. So I used board and batten siding like I did on the Victorianna’s towers.

I like this stuff because it’s easy to cut, and the vertical lines allow for neat seams at the corners. I glued on all the front pieces, then moved on to the clapboard, saving the smaller pieces on the back of the tower for last.

A few years ago I bought two old packages of Northeastern Scale Lumber clapboard cheap at a flea market. In the past I’d always used Houseworks siding. I’m not sure if it’s due to age or this is just the quality of this product, but the siding is very brittle and hard to cut without splitting. I thought about buying a new package of siding for the Villa, but that stuff is expensive, so I decided to do a few test pieces first. If I had any trouble cutting those, I’d order a new package.

I started with the piece under the upstairs porch roof, since the roof gives a flat surface for the siding to push up against. This would help me keep the pieces lined up all the way around the house.

(Note: I didn’t actually glue the pieces on as I went along — I cut them all first, then glued — but I’m showing the pictures I took as I glued them in.)

Next I cut the angled piece above this. I made a template of the space using pieces of paper.

I expected this to be a mess when I cut it, but it came out perfect. I decided at this point that I’d move forward with this siding.

Continue reading