Kate’s Colonial Home Kit

Posted by Unknown on 5:00 PM in Colonial, Home, Kateâs, Kit | No comments

Having a layout measuring only 4’ x 8’, there is very limited room for structures after track and terrain are added. As is my situation, I just don’t have the real-estate for full sized town and residential areas, so I find myself having to represent these zones with only 1 or 2 structures. For the residential aspect of my layout, I have room for one house and I chose the Kate’s Colonial Home Kit by Atlas.

I liked the buildings yellow and forest green colour theme, so I used very similar colours when I painted the exterior. I did however change the roof shingle colour to a dark brown instead of the recommended light grey. The great thing about Atlas kits is the injection molding process they use, which results in high quality, very detailed, and precise parts that fit together easily with little to no prep work.

The window coverings are printed on photo paper which I taped and glued to the inside walls. Because I wanted to light the house, I had to add a layer of dark cardstock to the inside of the walls so light wouldn’t shine through the styrene shell. To light the structure, I used the same method as in my Walthers Merchant’s Row I kit by building a small light diffuser box out of styrene. I built the interior walls around the light box with thick cardstock, allowing light to glow through small doorways.

Once the first floor was completed, I added a styrene floor for the second level, and used the same cardstock wall method that I used for the first floor, building around the light diffuser box. I then added a cardstock ceiling to the second floor rooms, preventing any light from glowing though up to the attic windows and into the roof section. This ceiling can also be removed (along with the actual roof) to access the light diffuser box in the event of a burnt out bulb.

The kit was weathered using a semi-soft paintbrush and dry pastels that I ground up into a fine powder. I made sure almost all of the pastel was off of the brush before applying it to the building as it isn’t very forgiving. A final spray of Testors dull coat sealed in the pastel weathering. The chimney and foundation mortar were coloured using thinned black and white washes.