More history and finished dollhouse roof shingles!

Here is another piece of dollhouse history.... I had this sitting in my room for years as a girl and never once looked at the bottom of the dollhouse. So when I began striping and sanding the interior and exterior, I was really surprised to see this on the bottom of the dollhouse.

It's a bit hard to read, but it says,

PERISHABLE

HARVARD BRAND FANCY FILLETS

WHITMAN WA?? & LEE CO

SOLE PRODUCERS AND DISTRIBUTORS

3-15 FISH PIER    BOSTON MASS

In the upper left hand corner there is another paragraph, shown magnified below.

 It reads,

NOTICE TO EXPRESS AGENTS

IF CONSIGNEES REFUSE SHIP-

MENTS OR CANNOT BE LOCATED

WIRE US IMMEDIATELY AT OUR 

EXPENSE

The white patch on the center of the bottom is actually a small piece of wallpaper that looks like what was previously on the master bedroom walls. Its pretty faded, but in better shape than the paper that was actually on the walls.

So now that the roof of the dollhouse is painted, I can go ahead with the roof shingling project. I painted the roof dark brown so that if the shingles are not perfectly aligned, you won't be able to see the roof plank color because it will look  brown like the shingles.

The second half was slightly more difficult because I have to incorporate the chimney. I tried holding it on top of the shingles in place and I don't think that will work, it just doesn't look realistic. What worries me is that I would like to put brick on the chimney, and I don't have the brick compound yet. So I can't finish the chimney yet. I decided to tack it loosely in place as a space holder and do the rest of the shingles around it so that I can still remove it to do the brickwork. It worked pretty well and the shingles fit well around the chimney. I had to cut a number of the shingles into pieces to fit around the chimney. Here is the final result...

I am really happy with how the roof turned out. It really looks very realistic. Soon I would like to do the brick work on the chimney. I have the Bromley Craft Products stencil

http://www.craft-products.com/proddetail.asp?prod=STR

 However, the brick compound is expensive and I think I would need just over one package. I have found some rumors that people have used brick colored grout instead, but I want to make sure that it would finish as hard and tough (read, kid-proof) as the Bromley products do.

If you are interested in how this works check out this tutorial...

It's ambitious but considering how quick and relatively easy the shingling was, I am really tempted to do the whole house in bricks. I think I will definitely do the chimney and the fireplace. The looks I am imagining are...

I probably won't brick the tiny pieces connecting the chimney body to the chimney roof. Also the fireplace will remain open, I have plans for the fire in the fireplace :).