I started a new project recently, this to build a few glitter houses modelled after homes around the neighborhood. It's an interesting mish-mash of styles and eras, but many of considerable interest. I like the ones from the 1920-1940 years, as those will work well with a loop of toy trains. Anyway, started off with a "four-square", a pretty common style that originated around the turn-of-the-century (19th) and continued through the 1930s. There are at least a half-dozen of them on my block, so a good place to begin.

The first step was building a cardstock mock-up. The roof is fairly straightforward, except for the dormer that is built out from the front. Some houses of this style have dormers on each side, but the one I chose to model has just the one. Using a mock-up was critical, as the old high-school geometry skills ain't what they used to be and a bit of fudging was required to get the complexities of the roof sorted. A few cuts, recuts, some trimming, and we finally had something that would work:



Once the roof was assembled, I could begin cutting the sides using some matt board I had left from earlier projects. I used the photo to come up with window/door placement. I also incorporated the base for the front porch:



After adding some interior bracing and papering a few of the exposed edges/corners, I started working on the porch roof. I'd like to tell you that it was all an exercise using pencil, paper, compass, and protractor, but that would be baloney...it was a total fudge-job. I'd be embarrassed to describe it; just know I started with some rough dimensions, cut the front bit, than a pair of sides that I trimmed and retrimmed until I got the angles close to what I wanted. I cemented a piece across the back, then glued it to the front of the structure, adding the columns afterwards:



At this point, I reached out to Howard for some recommendations on final assembly. It will need to be painted and glittered before the windows go in, so interior access is an issue. I think we decided on painting the roof, the structure, and the base separately. Then I'll glue the roof and wall structure and glitter the combination together. The base gets glittered separately, then the window glazing goes in. The last step will be to glue the house to the base. Better ideas, let me know.

Working on the base now, plus adding a bit more interior bracing to the house to try to minimize warpage during painting.

More soon...

Okay, been away from this for a bit, making progress agonizingly slow. Finished up the major components (roof, structure, and base), and designed and printed window inserts using MS Excel:



I made a couple of six-panel doors, one for the front and one for the side. Once those are mounted, the next steps will be:

(1) Attach the roof to the house;
(2) apply glitter to the roof and house;
(3) mount the windows;
(4) glue the house to the base;
(5) scenic and glitter the base.

Quite a ways to go.

Progress has been slow but steady. I got the roof attached using a few cardstock tabs cemented under the eaves. This process revealed that the roof doesn't really fit all that well due to the height of the dormer at the front. Getting everything to look right leaves a narrow gap between the walls and the roof; might have to go back and rework that if light seepage is problematic.

Once that was done, I started the glitter application. I'm using Mod Podge rather than white glue, as the MP seems to take a bit longer to dry, leaving more time to rework areas or apply additional glitter. It also seals the matt board, so warpage is minimized:



Did the roof first, than started the sides one-by-one. I'm using a coarse white glitter, which seems to work and look much better than the finer stuff. Once the glitter is on and thoroughly dry, I'll print and mount the window glazing.

Okay, window glazing is in:



Once the vellum paper has shrunk up and drawn tight, I can check everything before gluing the house to the base. Then just the base needs to be scenic'd and glittered.

Okay, got the house glued onto the base, then scenic'd the base. There's still a few spots that could stand some touch-up, but probably best to just leave it alone:



I have a second one, different design, that's started, but I think I'll defer work on that until I get some other projects sorted. In the meantime, what d'ya think?

One objective of this project which I think I failed to mention was that of making it approximately O-gauge in size, or what Thor Sheil used to call "tin-scale". For that reason, it's quite large as compared to most of the carboard houses made and marketed back in the middle part of the last century (feels weird saying that). Looking at it now, I realize that it's not necessary...perception is all in the mind's eye. I think future projects will go back to something a bit smaller and more in-line with stuff commercially produced.

And whatever comes next, I might ditch that cake-frosting snow effect on the peak(s) of the roof; looks kinda weird to me.

Hmmm, I was looking around at putz photos on the "Papa Ted's" segment of the Cardboard Christmas site and saw this shot:



That house at the opposite end of the block from the church looks sorta familiar.

http://cardboardchristmas.com/papateds/Putz08.html

Picked up a couple books of house-plans, as offered by the Sears, Roebuck and Company back before the war. There are a few here in the 'hood that are strikingly similar, but it's tough to tell if they are Sears houses given 90-100 years of modifications. Anyway, for the Christmas "garden", the Cornell from 1926:



Went a little crazy with the glitter