After many months of playing with the interior of the house, I'm back to work on the outside. When last we saw our hapless heroine, she had just finished staining shingles for the roof. Those are still sitting in the hangar waiting to be glued on. First I have to finish the siding and glue the roof in place.

After seeing some other, beautifully finished Fairfields, I decided to revisit my color choices. I decided to be brave and try painting my windows and front door with accent colors. (There's a first time for everything!) Here's my first attempt. The purple looks kind of light in the picture, but it's actually a dusty plum color.

I happened to have a broken window so I practiced on that.

I'm also going to paint over the brown porch and foundation of the house. I want a darker green that will go nicely with the accent colors and the green of the house. My first attempt was too much like a Christmas tree, so I have to try some different paint (I'll spare you the pictures!)

March 14th - At long last, the siding is all on!

Since the pictures on this page are a bit small, here is a close up. I was a little sloppy at the corners because I knew I'd be covering them with trim.

I don't know why it took me so many months to get that siding on... probably just because putting it on was boring. Once I committed myself to finishing it, though, I got it done in an afternoon. My latest crisis is that the (water based) paint doesn't want to take on the (oil based) sealer I used. It wasn't a problem when I was painting directly on plywood, but on the siding it is. It's frustrating, and the finish is kind of lumpy, but only really noticeable when you're right up close. Oh well, I'll deal. I'm NOT taking that siding off and replacing it!

Update April 14: I decided to add fishscale shingles to make the house a little more interesting. (They'll also cover up some defects in the less-than-perfect paint job...) Rather than use the Houseworks wooden shingles, which come as individual pieces, I am cutting strips from posterboard. These will be glued onto the bottoms of the bay windows and the top of the pointy walls.

I'm using manicure scissors to cut these.	After the paint dries, I'll glue these strips on over the siding.

I started with shingles on the bay windows, since those would be easier than the ones on the tops of the walls (they'll go under the eaves of the roof). I will have to cut out a lot more paper strips before I'll be ready to do those!

View into the kitchen. I still have to add corner trim to cover up the gaps where the siding meets.