Pulling The Frame Together

After sanding all the pieces smooth, I taped the house together with masking tape to make sure it fit with no major problems. Then I just glued it together. Then I turned it over and glued the basement strips to the bottom. The basement will be where the wiring strip will hide. All the lights will plug into the strip.

Because I didn't use thicker wood for the sides and bottom, I had to make up the difference with foam core board on the interior walls so the floors would fit and I cut and glued two pieces of wood together for the base, weighted it and let it dry overnight.

The next step was to mask off the edges and pieces to be kept flat, then spackle or "texturize" the front and sides. I used two different widths of tape and cut my pieces with an exacto knife. I covered everything with tape that was not to be spackled.

Then I used a putty knife to put the texture on and let it dry overnight. I will just peel the tape off when it's dry and paint it. The next step will be to add trim to the outside windows and doors and make steps for the outside. So far I've used half a bottle of wood glue (about 4 oz.) and about a third bucket of vinyl spackling (about 10 oz.).