{"id":15992,"date":"2020-09-21T20:40:34","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T03:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/?p=15992"},"modified":"2020-09-21T20:40:34","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T03:40:34","slug":"screened-in-back-porch-vignette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/?p=15992","title":{"rendered":"Screened-in back porch vignette"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently bought a 1920s Back Porch Kit from a miniaturist who was clearing out her stash. This kit was made by Daffodil Miniatures & Gifts in Salt Lake City. I don’t think the company is around anymore, and the instructions don’t have a year on them so I don’t know how old this kit is.<\/p>\n

The kit had been advertised as “partially assembled,” but the person I bought it from removed it from the original box to reduce the shipping cost, so the kit was packed in a ziploc bag when it arrived with a lot of loose pieces. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Judging from the directions, I think what I received was *less* assembled than what would have come in the original kit — particularly the walls and the roof — but I don’t know if that’s because the original builder took it apart make it flat for shipping or if the pieces had broken before that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Either way, it took me a while to figure out how everything fit together. The instructions have a few black and white assembly pictures, but there’s no good photo of the final product. Luckily all the pieces are here, and I was able to tell from the dots of dried glue what was supposed to go where.<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

Several years ago I built a Houseworks front porch kit<\/a>. The back porch faces the opposite direction, so I decided to finish it with the same colors as if the two porches are on the same house.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Once I figured out how the back porch fit together, the first steps were to finish the bricks and the base under the porch while they could still be accessed. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These bricks are the styrene 1:24 scale bricks<\/a> from Houseworks. I used them once, on my first half scale house the Fairfield<\/a>, and never again. They’re hard to cut (but thankfully that’s already been done for me!) and they’re smooth, which doesn’t look realistic. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I started by spreading Andi Mortar Mix<\/a> over the bricks, then wiping it off with a damp sponge.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Unlike with egg carton bricks<\/a>, where the grout gets stuck in the pits for a more textured look, the plastic bricks are totally clean after they’re wiped off. They’ll be hard to see once the porch is assembled, but I still wanted to try to make them look better.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First I tried a black wash. That worked with the Fairfield’s fireplaces<\/a>, but it seemed too dirty for a foundation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I sponged off the black wash and tried gray instead. Here you can see the black wash on the left side and the gray on the right. I liked the gray better.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After doing the gray wash on the rest of the bricks, I glued on the siding.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next I had to figure out what to do with the base, since I won’t be able to reach the part under the porch once everything is glued in. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I used a grass sheet on the front porch, but it seemed weird to have lush, manicured grass extending underneath the porch.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I dug out this Woodland Scenics “summer grass” sheet left over from the Four Seasons Roombox<\/a>. I’ll leave the part under the porch alone, and will add crumb grass to the rest of it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I remembered from my previous experience that folding the sheet at the corner resulted in an ugly white line<\/a>. This time, rather than folding over at the corners, I glued separate strips to the edges. But there are still thin white lines where the pieces meet.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So I pulled out the crumb grass to make sure I could cover up those lines. I brushed Mod Podge over the area I wanted to cover, and then sprinkled the grass over it. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The seams are successfully disguised! I’ll hold off on doing the rest of the grass until the structure is finished.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Luckily my blog post about the original porch said what paint color I used (Glidden Pearl Gray), and I had some left. This is why I always make a point of mentioning the name of the paint I use — so I can remind myself later.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More to come soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently bought a 1920s Back Porch Kit from a miniaturist who was clearing out her stash. This kit was made by Daffodil Miniatures & Gifts in Salt Lake City. I don’t think the company is around anymore, and the instructions don’t have a year on them so I don’t know how old this kit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,28,26,95],"class_list":["post-15992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dollhouses","tag-half-scale","tag-infinite-possibilities-porch","tag-roomboxes","tag-screened-in-back-porch","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15992"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16023,"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15992\/revisions\/16023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emilymorganti.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}