Bungalow Dollhouse: Exterior Construction

Today I've got a long overdue follow up to my original bungalow construction post.  We're looking at the exterior; roofing, siding, shingles, foundation, and landscaping.  All of which was all done prior to my fall scene. 

The photo above was taken right after I removed the snow from my winter scene (post to follow) and so things are still being put back into place.  I'm getting ready for a spring/summer display (and painstakingly removing the leftover snowflakes!)  So let's rewind a bit and look at how things came to be.

I wanted the bungalow to have a traditional look but didn't want stained wood shingles that came with the kit.   I found these fantastic asphalt shingles at the Little Dollhouse Company.  Best part?  They are self-adhesive asphalt shingles!  No glue needed! I highly recommend them, they were much quicker to apply and look really good.  The only thing I would do next time is use a roller or something to really get them to flatten to the roof, they lifted up in a few spots which is odd because the adhesive is super strong and sticks to everything.  I think I could have pressed down more during the application to avoid this.

I also filled in the upper window gap.  When I made my own windows I changed the size so for the top window that meant I had a gap to close.  I cut a thin piece of veneer (it was actually a floorboard from my deck project) and glued it in place.  It sticks out the tiniest bit but you really can't tell!

For the foundation, I debated between a regular brick and a rough brick.  In the end I preferred the Model Builder Supply's "1:24 scale dressed stone" which looks like 1:12 rough brick.  I painted it white before attaching it to the foundation with tacky glue.  I also used white wood filler to hide any seams.

This was the regular brick first:

And this is the dressed stone I went with:

The walkway was based on the paver stones from my patio project.  I used pieces of balsa wood, cut and painted them before adding spackle to fill in the gaps.

For the soil part, I cut out a piece of foam board in the shape I wanted.  I then shaved and rounded off the edge before painting it black.  To finish it off I used a model train terrain soil mix from the Hobby Store.  I also tried tea for a mulch look but didn't like it with my plants as much, I thought it kind of overwhelmed everything.  But it's a great option for another scene. 

The lawn took some trial and error as well. Originally I used an HO scale autumn grass mat (darkest powder like green) before switching to a long hair like grass.  Here is a photo of the colours I bought.  The autumn long grass is the first (its medium green with specks of brown) I found it on Amazon, then the HO scale autumn (darkest green) and lastly the bright spring/summer green I got at the Little Dollhouse Company.  It really made a difference having the right tone to match the plants.

I think in the future I could make the line between the soil and the grass a bit messier.  But I wanted it to be really easy to switch out the grass come spring/summer.

Thanks for stopping by!  I know I'm a bit quieter here than before, I've personally found social media to be a more convenient and practical way to keep up with sharing miniatures.  I'll always be popping in here because a single image there can't capture a project the way a blogpost can.  I started putting together my winter scene post and after that I'm going to dive into my new dollhouse build.  So to all my mini friends here on blog land I miss you and I hope you are doing well!