Sandy Shores - Porch

A little porch for the grounded carriage

Despite the 4 days of progress, there's just a small update for tonight as there are some jobs that are half-complete that I'd like to complete before showing the final results; it makes sense to try and keep things together; especially when it comes to archiving.

One of the things that has been on my list for a few days is to rig up the nameboard. In true tatty seaside style, I've elected to suspend it from a hook (that has now been attached to the upper pelmet) with parcel string. There's actually a lot of pondering and experimentation that went into working out how best to tie the string around the nameplate. It was tricky making sure that:
a) All the text is easily visible
b) The nameboard does not tilt when hung
c) It looks suitably tatty and homemade!

So here's what I ended up with; a length of string seemingly randomly wrapped and tied around the nameplate: 

And as for the title of this post, another smallish job on my list was to create a porch for the grounded carriage. I wanted something that looks like a later addition, but I also wanted a porch of wooden construction, with a corrugated iron roof. Despite being a small structure, it still took a long time to build. As with all structures, the first step was to create a cardboard mock-up to check dimensions against the existing building. All was well, so it was then time to transfer the mock-up onto balsa wood, where I could then cut out the window and scribe the "planks" and create a base.

Initially, I had planned to make a separate door from plasticard (just like the kiosk), however, I remembered that the grounded carriage had its doors created by pressing in with a blunt tool to create a relief; so the same was done here. After that, it was a case of mitring the corners (cut with a small saw, then any slight adjustments made with sandpaper).

The base was painted in the same concrete colour as used for the lighthouse, and the corrugated roof was painted in my usual method. Something I'm particularly happy with is the painting of the rest of the porch; the balsa wood seems to have really taken well to the paint, first with a thin layer of brown, then a wash of white. Final details could then be made again with a thin application of brown paint on randomly selected planks (and the door and lintels). With the window made (as per the rest of the carriage windows), the porch was more or less complete. All that is left is to dig out the sand to glue the concrete base down:

So that's it for tonight; more tomorrow though!