Today I learned the hard way not to blindly trust instruction manuals. The cottage’s said to fit doors and windows near the end of construction, making minor adjustments as necessary. It took around 90 minutes to install two windows and one door, and as Crankenstein sat on the ottoman in my office and watched me fumble through these activities — with trademark grace and elegance, I accidentally knocked things over and spilled glue onto my lap — she undoubtedly wanted to wrest the front of the house from my hands and finish the work herself.*
There’s not much trim remaining (since I’m ditching the model’s unattractive shutters), but I’ll come up with something decorative to conceal the trim gap above the door. An interior welcome mat will close the slight gap at the bottom, which you can see in the second photo along with the only radiator I’ve found that works in this space. That brings us to a gripe.
When Crankenstein reads this she’ll laugh at me (rather than with me), but radiator placement in most dioramas and dollhouses is appallingly irrational. Putting one wherever you think it’s cutest defies the logic of the radiator and its plumbing: they belong near windows for a reason. Even if you disregard its purpose, imagine what’s directly below it: another level of the same house or a downstairs apartment, or a crawl space or basement. What’s the likelihood it’s plumbed for your whimsically arranged radiator?**
We conclude with assorted accessories and scale fails: the door’s design doesn’t leave enough space for even that small knob, so it’s back to the drawing board for that. The planters will need dirt and flowers, and the wardrobe I made from a kit might be set aside for future use — it’s part of a matching bedroom I’m uncertain will fit in the loft once the roof’s on.
An unfinished couch (I’ve not yet painted it or attached its legs) is in the background here, just to see if I liked its size. It’s properly scaled but I might go with a loveseat/chair combo instead; the cottage’s furnishings are still very much in the air. The wooden kit is for a trellis that’ll go in the yard, while the Spam arrived larger than even 1:12 scale, much less 1:24.
For reasons I have no time to explain, the lighthouse kitchen requires both Spam and Vienna sausages, two foods I personally avoid. Whether I can find them in half-scale or will have to craft my own remains to be seen. That I’ve spent time this week not only thinking about something so odd but also writing about it here is one of those turns life takes that we never see coming, like Lukas Haas’s political conversion in Everyone Says I Love You. Maybe a coconut will fall on my head tomorrow and I’ll disavow this.
* In the process of cleaning up after myself, I transferred a small amount of glue to my hair. Also, she was on the ottoman because Muriel had already claimed the chair.
** And while we’re at it, stop putting traditional wood-burning fireplaces in structures without chimneys.