How about this little beauty for NE-style homes?

[Philip H]

Chris,
Compared to some of the stuff you've done, filling those holes and carving matching brick will be easy. Get to it!

[jimmo]

Maybe we need a WS kitbash challenge. Let's see what we can do with one of their kits.

Too bad the subject of this forum is not yet available in kit form.

[MichaelWinicki]

At least the brickwork looks crisp! 

Seriously though, the some of the details will utilize more than one "hole" in the structure (like a fire-escape/roof access ladder) that extends from the ground to the roof.

[jimmo]

At least the brickwork looks crisp! 

Agreed. Although (to me) it looks like close-up shots of a Z-scale structure.

[peteski]

Chris,
Compared to some of the stuff you've done, filling those holes and carving matching brick will be easy. Get to it!

Chris' photo shows the exact reason why this building is not a good candidate for kitbashing. Sure, you can fill the giant holes and re-scribe the mortar lines, but it will be a pain in the butt. The larger bricks in the bricked-over windows also looks odd.

[OldEastRR]

Hmmmm..... people find ways to plug the holes in the top of boxcars where the roofwalk was, on the roofs of cab diesels where the wrong horns were in the wrong place, the unneeded headlight in a dual headlight loco, etc, and you can't tell where the holes were....yet it's a different case for holes in a building wall? Hmmmmm .....
I don't care what you guys think. I need little and at least one big Victorian houses for my New Haven-ish small town and I found what I wanted. I went researching the types of old (19th century and earlier)houses in New England and almost none of the types (colonial, salt box, greek revival, etc) are available in N scale. Having a house with a mansard roof w/ windows I don't have to try to build is a winner for me.

[DKS]

Hmmmm..... people find ways to plug the holes in the top of boxcars where the roofwalk was, on the roofs of cab diesels where the wrong horns were in the wrong place, the unneeded headlight in a dual headlight loco, etc, and you can't tell where the holes were....yet it's a different case for holes in a building wall?

Yes. I have nearly all of these "kits," and I'd gladly fill roofwalk and headlight holes rather than the dozens of gaping craters in these (what are laughingly called) "brick" walls. If you've tried doing both, you'd understand; carbody holes are nearly always on smooth surfaces, and they're comparatively small in size and number. Filling larger holes surrounded by texture--which must be matched--is not a trivial task. And even if they weren't peppered with holes, these buildings have limited usefulness owing to inconsistent, oversize brick and absurd architectural design.

Sample: here's the ice house, after I'd made a vain attempt to convert it into a freight depot.



Seriously?

Maybe the Victorian house will be more useful; if so, bravo. A couple of their downtown buildings might be sorta OK as background fillers. But the rest are jokes.

[tehachapifan]

You're right Dave, that looks absolutely awe.......inspiring? No, it looks terr......ific?  Seriously, what's wrong with what we see in the above photo? I'm not seeing it and I (thought I) have a critical eye.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Looks like something out of Stalingrad.

[MichaelWinicki]

Here are two images of a group of buildings I temporarily placed together on the layout.

The one on the left if from Jimmo... the one next to it is a "Downtown Deco" and the two on the right Woodland Scenics Prefabs.





I'll leave it to each individual to decide if the Woodland Scenics Prefabs are a good fit for their layout or not.

[mmagliaro]

Excellent photo.  I would choose the prefabs in a second.  The overly bright and overly large vegetable/fruit stand is
 the only problem I see, and that can easily be nixed.
Otherwise, I like them better than the Downtown Deco.  The one on the left is about equal to the WS, although I really
like the cool large-arch windows which are hard to find in kits, so I give it a point for that.   I think the foundation block is
oversized on it, however.

There are compromises, but I still think those WS buildings look quite good.

The one that DKS showed does not look good, I agree.  The lower block size is just way too big, for one thing.  But I think
the prefabs work better for these smaller buildings and houses, perhaps not so for the industrial buildings.

[wazzou]

I don't think that the block on DKS's photo can be dismissed that easily.  Large blocks of sandstone, limestone or marble were quarried all the time for foundations.  It does not necessarily represent cinder block.

Now more disturbing in that DKS photo is the lintels above the windows and how they are represented.

[MichaelWinicki]

Excellent photo.  I would choose the prefabs in a second.  The overly bright and overly large vegetable/fruit stand is
 the only problem I see, and that can easily be nixed.

LOL!

Yeah, don't blame WS for the colors on the stand Max... That was my faux-pas... trying to add color to the scene– I went overboard.  I'll attend to that issue at some point.

[jimmo]

I don't think that the block on DKS's photo can be dismissed that easily.  Large blocks of sandstone, limestone or marble were quarried all the time for foundations.  It does not necessarily represent cinder block.

Hey, what about my stone foundation blocks? Do you guys all think they are really too large? After all these years with nary a comment...

BTW, it's a Willmodels kit, not a Jimmo.

[mmagliaro]

Hey, what about my stone foundation blocks? Do you guys all think they are really too large? After all these years with nary a comment...

BTW, it's a Willmodels kit, not a Jimmo.

Well,
How big are they really?  Can you measure them?   My old house in PA had really big cut stone rectangular blocks in the foundation,
and I'd say they were about 12" high by 18" wide.  There were some other buildings in town with large blocks like that.
If yours are bigger than that, my instinct would say they are too large.