FreemoNtario - Lake Cowichan Subdivision

[craigolio1]

Here’s the angle looking from the tracks.



And here is the two houses implanted. I think I need to re-landscape a bit to get the right hand house a little lower.



Or maybe the road needs to be higher. Need to stare at it some more.





A piece of styrene temporarily in place to remove the dip in the road improves the look I think.



Craig.

[John]

I’m loving this. There are way too many layouts with the same kit houses, or none at all. 

[craigolio1]

I’m loving this. There are way too many layouts with the same kit houses, or none at all.

Thank you.

[craigolio1]

Ok, the last couple of days were a big deal.

I belong to a Facebook group for the town I’m modelling. People there have helped me out with memories, pics, and even measurements of a bridge.

So I figured I’ll post on the group and tell people about my project, in hopes that I could get some more participation. Well wouldn’t you know that the woman who lives in number 20… the next house to be modelled, expressed a keen interest and offered to send me pics of her house, yard, and take measurements of her house.

Here’s a sampling of what she sent me yesterday…. 

















And here’s what I built over night!!

I started with a plan view, one for the lower level and one for the upper.



Then i cut out walls:



The foundation is visible at the front of the house so I carved cinder blocks in the styrene



The lower level was assembled.



The bottom level has a car port and two garages. I used fine spaced V grove siding and scribed deeper lines every three rows.



The bottom of the top level needs a cut out for the front steps.

[craigolio1]

Everything lines up.



And the top gets assembled.







And stacked on top of each other we start to see the house take shape.







I’m really pleased with this one and I want to a bang up job on it so I can show a nice finished product to this woman who was gracious enough to contribute. They’ve lived in the house since 1972 and she tells me that in my time period of 1985-1990, the house was green with brown trim. And she says that I’d find one of these in the driveway!



Except in brown and gold.

Classical metal works “mini metals” makes a 1974 Buick wagon in brown and gold. Anyone have one of these hanging around I could buy? @CNR5529 found a place in the US I can buy them for $20 bucks, shipping to Canada is $35. I can’t justify a total cost of $80 CDN.

Craig.

[MK]

Maybe a bit too late now but you should have cut two of everything then send her a completed model when done as a thank you.  . I bet she would be thrilled.

[craigolio1]

Maybe a bit too late now but you should have cut two of everything then send her a completed model when done as a thank you.  . I bet she would be thrilled.

That’s a great idea!

[NorthWestGN]

Great modelling Craig, that's going to look awesome.

Brent

[craigolio1]

Great modelling Craig, that's going to look awesome.

Brent

Thanks Brent.

Today a lot of progress was made. With the core of this house complete, I was able to see exactly where the landscape needed to be adjusted. To get the house appropriately low in relation to the neighbours, I needed to lower the road and all surrounding landscape.



So out came the Multimax!





Now everything is at the correct grade and with the buildings in place we can see how the final scene will look.







Finally… she sent me a pic of the house in 1990!



Three more houses to go.

Craig

[Peachymike]

Hi Craig,
I just checked Intercity Trains and Hobbies, they have them Buicks in stock for $27 for two. There is a show in Sidney on Sunday, I can ask them to bring a pair over and I can put them in a bubble mailer if you want. Or you can order them online, they have an awesome website.
Mike

[craigolio1]

Hi Craig,
I just checked Intercity Trains and Hobbies, they have them Buicks in stock for $27 for two. There is a show in Sidney on Sunday, I can ask them to bring a pair over and I can put them in a bubble mailer if you want. Or you can order them online, they have an awesome website.
Mike

That would be great if you would do that for me. Thank you very much! I’ll PM you with my address.

Craig

[craigolio1]

Thanks to Mike’s tip,  the gold station wagons are on the way.

The last couple of days saw some good progress on 20 Prospect.

I noticed that the back right corner of the house doesn’t have a closed in side. It’s open to the deck. This modification was made as well as extending the walls to roof height.



Next I added soffits.



Unfortunately after they set up I was visualizing how the roof was going to go on and realized the soffits were too low and the roof over hang was going to be several feet too much.



That was corrected and once reinstalled I moved onto the little roof that goes around the porch and the ends of the house.





The ends of these roofs had to be cut at a compound angle to properly intersect the roof at the corners. I did this by eyeballing a rough cut and then using a long flat file and following the slope on the end walls as a guide… going very slowly and checking often.



With the over hangs all sorted out I trimmed the ends off of the side soffit so I could make room to install the front and rear, using those roof over hangs to measure and mount them.

 





With all of the soffits complete I cut and installed the front side roof.



It intersects nicely with the small roof on the side of the house.



I glued some thick styrene strip along the ridge to support it

 

The back roof was cut, but is only held on by two sided tape. It needs to be removable so I can finish the deck, but I wanted to see install it to check for fit.

And with these additions, the main structure of the house is complete. The rest is all in the details.

Here’s some comparison shots to the real deal.

[craigolio1]

Dormers should go on next but I’m starting to think ahead. The next big hurdle is windows. There’s nothing that’s close in the detail parts market and I want this house to be as accurate as possible. So I think I’ll be 3D printing them. This is a big deal as I don’t have a printer and my CAD skills are minimal. Perhaps it’s time to get a printer. And @CNR5529 and and b have chatted and it would seem the windows would be a good, easy to learn, project to get my feet wet with CAD.

So I suppose that’s what’s next.

Craig