We pulled out a victory!

Thanks to my awesome man, I now have all the openings (except for the dormers - story later) cut out for the barn!

It took me all afternoon, several "do-overs" and a good bit of my pencil eraser, but I finally got the openings laid out. I'm blaming the full moon for why I traced everything on the wrong side and had to do it over. It was beautiful, tho, and the night was one of those magic warm summer nights I look forward to all winter!

The dormers were a bit of a challenge. They are made for a regular pitched roof. The barn roof, well, it's a barn roof and not nearly as pitched as a normal house. This meant some adjustments. The hubs said we needed to figure out the angle. I asked him how to do that, and he pulls out this funny looking dial tool and says with this. He's a genius, and apparently our barn roof is a 22 degree angle.

The next challenge was how to cut a 22' angle using a giant miter saw on a triangular shaped dormer. The first attempt did not go as we'd planned, and did not achieve the results we were looking for. Luckily, the dormer ended up mostly in tact, Russ still has all his fingers, and I can camouflage the cosmetic and structural damage.

Next, we put our brains together and came up with a jig using styrofoam pieces I had tucked away. The next 2 dormers turned out great! I retraced their outlined onto the roof piece and we will cut them out tomorrow.

I am super excited to finally be beginning the barn structure, and so grateful that my husband is smart, supportive and owns lots of tools!

More exciting stories to tell tomorrow! Night everyone!

Some Major Changes to the Game Plan...

I wanted to start in small steps on the RGT barn (aka our retirement home) so I spent the past few months working on some of the interior elements. The kitchen kit was from an old Realife Miniatures kit I found on ebay.

The bathroom vanities were from old House of Miniatures kits from ebay, as well. I had an idea in my head about the size of the loft and just happily put stuff together. Well, the dry fit opened my eyes to the fact that I may have over estimated the amount of space, both floor space and ceiling height. No big deal. It's still the First Quarter. I just have to punt... Get the barn shell ready to go and modify or remake what I have to to make it work.

I decided the best way to move forward was to cut the openings for the dormers, garage doors, and front door. A couple months back I had ordered a specially made front piece from RGT without the barn door opening. I realized yesterday they had sent me a solid front wall (and a very warped one at that), but one for the smaller barn kit. So yes, it's about 2 or so inches short.

You know that feeling you have when you're looking for an important email, one that will prove that the mistake was theirs so they'll make it right and send out the correct piece post haste? But then you realize you've made an ass of yourself and deleted all correspondence? Yeah... Throw the flag, Punt again...

Okay, so not all is lost. There's still hope for a win! t least the short piece is the same thickness and has the exact same milled siding. So I just have to use it to fill in the original front wall with the barn door opening. Thank God my husband is willing and eager to help! He's much better with the real life sized tools than I am! 

So, the plan is to fill in the piece, glue it, spackle it, let it dry. Then I can trace the garage door and front door patterns onto to it and use my trusty  (miniature friendly) scroll saw to cut them out. Once that is done, I am free to begin the assembly, gluing, nailing, priming and running the wiring. Score! 

Finally! I have a direction and am ready to run with the ball! Even if the game plan is changing a bit. That's okay tho... us miniaturists have a lot of tricks in our play book!

Apologies for all the football references. Just getting excited for the season to start! Go Hawks!

Tiny Little Smithy...

At last check-in, I was making an attempt at miniature copper wire soldering. Well, I kind of threw myself in full tilt and made 9 different pieces! It was so much fun, I think I may just keep making them!

I've listed all 9 on ebay, and we'll just have to wait and see if anyone else out there in the mini world is as excited. I changed my ebay identity to tiny-little-smithy. If this works out, maybe I can earn a little "mini money" for future projects!

Here are photos of the 9 pieces, then below is a link to my items on ebay. Feel free to buy anything you like! ;0)

Click here to see Tiny Little Smithy on ebay.

Wish me luck!