Whispers from the Work Room

It started as a series of subtle whispers whenever I was in the basement.  Then it morphed into a desire to tackle my work table in the miniature area.

A while back a friend found this front porch kit at a resale shop and gave it to me.

I had contemplated building it into the hutch in the guest bathroom at the old house.  Now we don't have that hutch anymore and I think I'd rather make it actually look like a porch.

I glued the wall pieces together yesterday so I could see how much of the board I will need.  Maddie is posing with the only outdoor furniture I could find.  I wanted to make sure I'd have enough room for things like potted plants, seasonal decorations, and a porch railing. 

Doing it this way means I will also have space to put some furniture, even a Christmas tree, on the inside.

I will need to figure out how I want to create a back wall on the inside or even if I want one.  I could just leave it open. 

The roof does not reach all the way back, which would allow for light to reach the inside.  I'm going to put it on the built-in bookcase upstairs, in the section with the lightbox.  This means light won't be a problem.

I do need to do something about the original paint, which started chipping while the pieces were riding around in the box.

It's hard to tell from the picture but the color is green with crackled white over top.  I really would prefer something else but the kit pieces are made from MDF and not real wood, so I was afraid to sand it.  I think I'm going to try and just paint over everything (and fill cracks) and see what happens.

FH bought me a door and windows for Yule so I'm set there.  I will just need to build the base for the whole thing, figure out the supports, decide on the back wall, then create the porch rails, and some lattice to decorate the front of the base.

Honestly I'm not sure when I'll get the base constructed.  It's really cold outside and so digging out the table saw might not be fun.  I could use a hand saw but I really don't want that much sawdust in the house or the uneven cuts on the plywood.  However my desire to get going on this may force me to become really ingenious.  Maybe I'll enlist FH to hold a vacuum or something and borrow a friend's small skill saw.  We'll see!