Silk purses and sow's ears......

By trying to impose my vision of a French-style building onto a rather squat and dumpy Victorian corner shop, I am giving myself a major challenge.

The doors and windows of the basic kit aren't the right proportions and neither are the ceiling heights.  It would have been unquestionably much easier to have started off with a French-style kit, rather than trying to force this kit to conform, but if I've learnt anything from my 30 odd years of kit bashing, it's that it's all about imagination and thinking outside the box in order to achieve the right effect.

So, rather than mess about and change the windows completely, I've decided I'm going to stick with what I've got and transform them by trickery.  I do need to add a pair of French doors with balcony on the upper storey front corner, and add railings in front of the existing windows, but I will remove the central horizontal glazing bars from the other two upper storey windows and transpose a different window style using clear acetate which I can run through my inkjet printer to create differently proportioned glazing bars.

If that makes sense.

I have a copy of the Dover Art Nouveau Frames and Borders book, which comes with all of the clip art on a CD, so I can easily resize any of the suitable frames to create Art Nouveau windows.  I'll continue the theme on the two shop windows and for the shop sign, for which I've found a suitably Art Nouveau font.

I'm not sure exactly how this will work, but I've ordered some sheets of acetate which can be used with my printer, so I'll have a go.

I also want to use quoin stones at all the corners, but not large and small, as is common on buildings in the UK.  French houses have large, uniform stones, which gives the architecture a very distinctive look.

Having searched and searched for bags of quoin stones all of the same size, I've abandoned hope of finding any specifically designed for doll's houses, which in any case are quite expensive.  However, I have come across a perfect alternative, designed for the war-gaming fraternity, which will be just perfect...... laser cut thin plywood game bases, which are available in various sizes in bags of 50 for just a few pounds.

Result.

So I've started ordering the bits and pieces I'm going to need with a view to continuing the build next week.  

I'm still undecided about what wiring system I'm going to use. Initially I was veering towards battery operated LED lights, each with their own independent switches.  However, having seen some in action at KDF, I wasn't particularly impressed by the amount of light they give out.  Also, having fallen for the spectacular chandelier, which is 12volt, I'm kind of stuck with having to use wiring or copper tape and a transformer.

I need to make up my mind this weekend though, as I can't go ahead and do any of the interior decor until I know which wiring system I'll be using.  My toy shop lighting was mostly done with wiring with plugs and sockets, but I'm not going to have so many display units, each of which had individual bulbs in each section and which led to a complete cat's cradle of wiring behind the cabinets.  

I want something more streamlined this time, so perhaps copper tape would be easiest.  

Any suggestions.....?