Construction of a small lineside building

A small lineside building

I have builded this little lineside building out of styrofoam sheets (from package material) and
covered it with a ' concrete'  mixture. The building has a solar powered LED as interior light.

Walls and roof

The walls and roof are made from styrofoam packaging material. I made a quick and somewhat vague sketch in my railway notebook that served as a 'building plan'. I used a figure (Torrence) as measure for the door (I found the standard LGB figures somewhat tiny and I like to sculpt my own figures).
I used woodglue (for outdoor use). Wooden tooth-sticks are used to reinforce the attached parts. The building was testfitted on the desired spot on the layout to see how it would appear.

Construction of walls

Right on the spot!

Concrete

When everything looked fine, the glue dried and the openings for the windows and door were cut out, I applied a 5 - 10 mm thick layer of 'concrete' on the walls. This concrete was a mixture of Portland cement and fine sand. The layer gives the walls a plastered appearance and also reinforce the walls.
When the layer is dried out a bit you can easily (but carefully) remove excess concrete using a knive. When dried completely you can do this by using an old chisel or file or some sandpaper.
The concrete is water resistant and weather proof. My buildings are normally out in the garden all year round.

Concrete layer

When wet you can scribe some details in the layer (like I did on the mansion and the shop) but I kept it straight forward without any scribed in details. I will apply some corner stones later, using 2 component putty.

It seems Torrence have to go somewhere...

Solar powered interior light

Next I made a square hole in the roof for installing a little solar panel. It comes from a cheap solar garden lantern. The top of the lantern houses the panel, the electronics including an on/off switch and the battery.
I always prefer so called "warm-white" LED's because the "white" ones give such a cold and almost blue shade of light which I found very unrealistic. These are also not easy to tone done or to 'color' to a more normal light shade.
Cheap garden lights are a very nice source for indoor lights but have often the white LED's. So make sure the box mentions 'warm white', or if possible check it in the store.  

Solar powered LED unit

I replaced the wires to the battery holder with longer wires. The unit will be fixed in the roof and if I kept the original wires it will be difficult to replace the battery when needed because it will be still in the building. Replacing the battery will be difficult because of the limited space for my hands (actually only my fingers) in the building. With longer wires I can pull this section out of the building (through the open underside) and replace the battery outside the building with more space for my hands.

Extended wires and testing the LED

The solar panel was fixed in the roof using woodglue. Next a layer of concrete was applied in which I scribed in lines to resemble roof tiles.

Solar panel in place

Rooftiles

The rooftiles are made actually not only by scribing in some lines but also gently cutting / carving away some concrete surface in a way a nice relief is created. As if the upper part of a tile is covered by the lower part of the tile above.

Step 1; scribe in lines

Step 2; creating relief

Step 3; vertical lines

Chimney

A small chimny was created out of a piece of plastic rod. It was stick in the almost hardened concrete using a tooth stick again as reinforcement. A chimney stone (which reinforce the chimney even more and almost makes it toddler proof) was made from 2 component putty.

Chimney

Door and windows

The door and window are made from stryrene strips glued with plastic modellers glue. This will make a fairly strong and weatherproof part. I have had some bad experiences with using wood for these parts in the past.
Transparent plastic was placed behind the window openings. You can choose to use a clear transparent plastic or a somewhat blurry plastic which don't show the interior of the building but will let the light through.

Construction of windows from styrene strips

Painting and finishing

I first painted the walls in color I liked for this building. After I applied 2 layers the paint covered the concrete enough. I used 2 component putty from Bison to sculpt some stones in the corners.
The waterproof grey Bison putty smells terrible and dries very fast.
Actually I prefer to use Milliput putty which is also waterproof but almost odourless and finer of structure. It takes longer to dry giving you all the time to work on.
However I did not have it at hand at the time and Bison is easy to obtain at any DIY store.

Painted and stones in the corners

Roof and stones where painted in grey and the door and windows in a fresh green color. This all contrasts very nice but subtle with the walls.

I used a turpentine based paint for the walls because I had it left over from a home decorating job decades ago... Door, windows, chimney and cornerstones were painted with acrylic hobby paint, also obtained at a DIY store. For the roof I used grey wood-stain paint (also a left over) which gives it a very nice slightly weathered look and accentuate the tiles.

Door painted using acrylic hobby paint

   

Door handle made from styrene bits

Treshold painted in same color as door

Roof and chimney painted

Done!

The building looks very in place on the layout and blends in with the rest. It is placed on a concrete base and some small crawling plants keeps it company on both sides.
Perhaps I can ad some sign on it but for now it is just as I hoped it would be.
When darkness falls the LED turns on spreading a nice warm glow through the windows and the small door window.