The Transformation of a Dollhouse: A Photo Journal

   The New Storage Building-Days 5, 6 and 7
   For 9/15/03 pictures, click HERE
   For 9/16/03 pictures, click HERE
   For 9/17/03 pictures, click HERE

On 9/18, Chris barely managed to get felt paper on the roof as the hurricane winds were hitting. With such strong winds, there was no hope for putting down shingles or doing anything else outside! The felt paper kept ripping up as he was trying to nail it down, so he ended up stapling it like crazy because by then the rain was starting to fall. We lost power for most of the day....finally the rain and winds ended by this morning and by this afternoon Chris had most of the shingles on the roof. We had to wait awhile for the felt paper to dry, but once the sun hit it it dried fairly quickly.

Here are the shingles all finished! This turned out to be an eight hour job!

Here is the building nearing its final stages. All we have left to do at this point is to attach the siding, paint it, make a door, seal the rafters, and install the electrical outlets. Then we can run power to the building and not only is there enough room for storing all the stuff we need to get out of the house, over half the building is left over for a workshop! No more sawdust in the living room! And now I'll have a place outside to work on dollhouses and Chris will have room to work on his projects as well. We are calling this building our "barn"...More pics tomorrow!

On 9/20, we got the siding put on the entire building. In this picture you can see the siding on the front of the building, the side still is uncovered. The siding makes a big difference in the way the building looks!

We always sign everything we make! We wrote our names and the date on the plywood before we put the siding on the back of the building. We've put a lot of blood and sweat into this building!

Just before dark I finally got started painting the siding. I didn't get much done before it was too dark to see! We are painting this "barn red" and we are going to trim it in "barn white". We still have a lot of work to do (such as making the doors tomorrow) but at least all that heavy wood is finally in place! We are pretty sick and tired of wood right now! Tomorrow we will probably paint all day. I'll post more pictures then.

On 9/21, Chris built the front doors and I painted all day. In the picture, the right door is hung and works like a charm! It is so smooth and easy to open and close! Due to lack of hinges, the door on the left is just standing there in its opening. We were only going to use 2 hinges per door but the are quite heavy so we decided to use three each.....and the hardware store isn't open until tomorrow! Tomorrow evening after work (ugh, our vacation is over) Chris will get the extra hinges and finish hanging the door.

It took all day to paint the front and part of the side of the building. The siding is very textured and it takes a while to get it in all the nooks and crannies.

These doors are made very well. We will eventually insulate the building since this will also be our workshop, so the doors are as thick as the walls. We are going to put an exhaust fan in for ventilation, and we also have an extra ceiling fan to hang from the ceiling to circulate air. This week after work we are going to run power to the building and install the electrical outlets and switches, and within the next few weeks we will add the white trim. We still have quite a few things to do as far as finishing goes, but as of tomorrow when we get the second door hung and locks installed we will be ready to move stuff in! I'll post more pictures when the building has trim on it. As for right now, that's all, folks!