Finishing The Roof

It's time to get back to work on the structure of my house.  I want to finish the roof to at least have some progress, and the next step was to construct the part under the lip of the roof.  The seam between the roof and the brick wall looks like a mess because I knew I would eventually add  a strip of wood and some roof beams.  Note to readers: if something looks like a crap job, it's most likely because I know it's going to be eventually covered/fixed, or it's just because I did a crap job, but would neverrrr happen (yeah, right).

Anyway, I FINALLY got my butt into gear yesterday and made a trip to the craft store for strips of balsa wood.  It's been raining here for the past 4 days, and yesterday it was raining and sleeting, yay.  So I have had no motivation to do anything.  Also, I have an annoying habit of not buying more hobby wood than I need, which turned into a whole trip for $1.68 worth of 3 strips of balsa.  Regardless, I bought the wood and now could work on the roof.  The first step was to cut the wood strips to line the seam.  I then traced the strips while they were on the seam so I could carve out the clay bricks to make room for the strips.  I've tried to skip this step, and the wood always lies wonky because the bricks all stick out differently.  Plus, when it becomes inlaid, it gives it a much more professional look.  And I'm nothing else if not professional (yeah, right...again).  I painted the cut strips Raw Umber by Americana to match the rest of the roof.

Yup, that's a real Burberry box.  Turns out I'm only selectively cheap.

Laying the house on its sides was terrifying, but I carved out the spaces for the wood and glued it in using wood glue:

I let it dry over night, and now it was time to add the little beams.  Back to Cheap Town.  I bought a 1000-count box of America's Choice wooden matches at the grocery store for $3.00 to use for lighting candles and my stove top.  Needless to say, I have a lot of matches, and they're the perfect width for the roof beams.

If I thought putting the dollhouse on its sides was terrifying, flipping it upside down was epically worse:

I wanted to get a shot with Dorothy Zbornak in it.

But it was the only way to make sure the matches wood (I just noticed that typo and I'm leaving it on purpose) dry in place without having to tape piece-by-piece.  I cut the matches into pieces, got 3 per match, and glued them into place:

Get an eyeful of my fancy electrical work.

It's drying now, and then I can paint and age when I come back from seeing Mama.