Alright, now that I'm feeling back on track and fairly settled into the new house -- I've been wanting to focus on my miniature making and dollhouserie! I brought one 1:12 house with me to work on which I've had for a couple of years but kept being put off by the front of it. The facade is MDF, which had several thick glue slicks on the back, and then the front was done in a plastic coating -- which with time has been cracking and flaking off in several spots. Initially I had no clue how to combat the issues with the plastic... however I decided this was one kit I could pack up fairly easily in a plastic tote and bring with me to my new home to work on when I could. As I had moved to enter into a new job and see how I and my boyfriend would do with living together -- I knew I would need some sort of project to keep me sane at times. lol I realize that sounds terrible, but I've never lived with someone before and have always prized my alone time. Thankfully, he not only understands that but appreciates it as well!Sooo, where am I with this rarely seen house? Thankfully not out in the driveway having a bonfire with the pieces like I wanted to a couple of weeks ago! I've never had any one house give me so many issues at literally every step of the way... Tonight though I want to share the only article I've ever found in regards to this kit, and then also how I'm planning on making the uh-oh's and OH NO's work for both me and the kit! :)
The article/description and picture are from the Miniatures Catalog Third edition, located on page 65 in the townhouse section. I've honestly only ever seen the one I have in person, and I've looked for this model elsewhere -- Ebay, Craigslist, Etsy, you name it. I've never seen another anywhere. So I have to wonder if perhaps the plastic coating made it more unpopular or what the reasoning may be. Either way, as mentioned my issue was that age had taken it's toll and a good bit of the plastic on my front opening panel was to be frank cracked, flaking, or had holes -- not a good start for an elegant brownstone! I then had the brilliant idea of using some of the Krylon Stone Finish paint to give texture to the bricks -- worked out well til a well-meaning man whom will remain nameless decided to be helpful and stand it upright while drying. Left my building with some nasty paint runs! So being brilliant and wanting to move forward(as in fix the mess) I used a paint stripper to remove the paint... That was my second big uh-on moment, as the paint stayed on in those nasty streaks, but the plastic came off almost everywhere else!
So, I did some research and found a product called Goof Off.
It removes paint but is safe on plastic, that helped me to get rid of the streaks thankfully! However now I had a panel that still had the roof detail and shutters, but most everything else was obliterated... Oh, this kit also had no window panes -- so I'll be doing something from scratch to replace those. Anyways, while I had bought sheets of plastic brick to paint and put on the sides to match the front -- I now had a very sad looking, not a lot of brick detail left front. Thankfully, I've got two bags of miniature stone from Andi Mini Brick and stone which will work well to replace the side detailing of the front. In addition this has pushed me to try my hand with Paperclay -- I have two packs and am hoping to emulate/reproduce most of the original brick detail with it. Simply put, while I thought this project was going to be up in flames the other week for how upset I was getting with everything going wrong -- I've decided positive is always better, and there's always an answer even if not what we had initially planned on. :)
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