J&C Studios O Gauge Archive


O Gauge / O Scale Forums and Individual Blogs
for Model Railroading
What is the J&C Studios O Gauge Archive?

J&C Studios O Gauge Archive


O Gauge / O Scale Forums and Individual Blogs for Model Railroading

What is the J&C Studios O Gauge Archive?
(Guest)   JCS Archive   jdcrawler   O-scale log house
 
O-scale log house
jdcrawler
Joined: Apr 4, 2011
Topics: 46 Replies: 65 Topics: 46
My Archive Category |
posted Jan 16, 2014: 
This is one that I have wanted to model for a long time. .....

I grew up living in a log home on 80 acres of woods about 15 miles south of Traverse City, Michigan.
The house started out as a one room building in the early 30's and was added onto thru the years.
It sat in a natural clearing in the woods about 1/3 of a mile back off the road.
The house was built from ceder logs that were taken off the property.



My father sold the house and property to a couple from Ohio in 1965.
They used it for summer vacations and for deer hunting season and it sat empty the rest of the time.

In 1971 it was up for sale again ( for more than I could afford ) and Marie and I drove in and took some photos of the place.
Here are a couple of those photos.










My wife came across an old box of photos that we had forgotten that we even had.
These two old photos were inside.

These would have been take in the summer of 1940 when the two story addition was built on the back of the house.
If you look close, you can see that the logs on the addition have not been painted yet and the windows still have the new stickers on the glass.
You can see thru both windows on the ground floor so there aren't any inside walls put up yet.
The dirt is still piled up from digging out for the basement and has not been back filled in.










Dad bought 6-pane windows for the house.
He put three of them together for each of the big windows on the ground floor and two of them together for the big windows in the up stairs.

I've gotten the sets of windows glued together and primed and here are some of the wall panels with the window openings cut out in a couple of them.






The base of the house is cut out and some of the wall panels are glued on.
My room was upstairs at the very end and had two small windows in it as you can see here.






Most of the buildings that I have built have had a printed paper siding glued onto the walls.
For this one, I've bought a bunch of small wood dowels that will be cut to individual "logs" and glued onto the wall panels.






Sometimes setting pieces up and gluing them together can get complicated.
Here are the pieces to form the framework for the roof.






This is what it looks like without all the braces and clamps.






And how it looks setting on the house walls.






Getting the roof sections fitted in place.
Starting with the roof on the main floor and the back addition.






Then I put the roof over the attic and the front door.






The whole roof section is primed and the edge trim is painted yellow.






I printed sheets of "roof shingles" off the internet.
These are cut to fit and glued onto the roof.






The roof shingles are all glued on and the cedar shingle siding is put on the side walls of the peak ends and the dormers.










Working on fitting the logs in place.
I set one window in so you can get an idea of how they will look.






Here is the finished model as it looked when I lived in it as a kid.


























 
JohnBoy
Joined: May 14, 2008
Topics: 110 Replies: 517 Topics: 110
My Archive Category | My Website
posted Jan 16, 2014: 
Wow that is gorgeous! Nice work!

And what a nostalgic and meaningful project, building a model of the home you grew up in.

Are you going to put this on the layout?

Thanks so much for sharing, and especially for the in-progress steps, I really dig that.

John
 
Mark Boyce
Joined: Nov 3, 2012
Topics: 0 Replies: 17 Topics: 0
My Archive Category |
posted Jan 20, 2014: 
Wow! That is really nice work and a great building to model even if it wasn't the home you grew up in. That makes it all the better, however that I have many memories of the home. About 20 years ago, I built my family homestead. I was modeling N-scale at the time and it is made of styrene. Maybe someday I will do it again in O. Thank you also for the step by step photos. Very impressive. I am new to this forum and will have to take a look at your older postings also.

Happy Model Railroading,
Mark Boyce
Butler, Pennsylvania
 

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