A Solid Foundation...(is a good place to start!)

It was quite rainy and miserable part of last weekend so I coaxed my dh into helping me work on the Newport foundation.  Don't tell him I told you, but I think he quite enjoyed himself!

They say work from the bottom up, so that's where I started.  The addition foundation was first. 

I had done a number of dry-fits of the all of the foundation pieces already, so I knew what I was dealing with.  I ran into a small problem during assembly and ended up taking about 1/4 of an inch off of two of the pieces that make up the addition foundation. 

*I would not recommend this if you are new to dollhouses, or if you have other options.  The reason behind doing this for myself was completely asthetic.  In the end, I'm happy with the result.

Once the walls were up, we added the floor...

Finished!

 Adding some glue to the seams...

We next assembled the main house foundation, (remember, both are being built separately).  The front and back wall foundation pieces were really bowed/warped before we installed the floor to the finished foundation, the bow had to be corrected. 

If you look at the two middle pieces, you can see where they gap to the front and back pieces
(the bay is not attached at this point)

Extra glue, tape and a couple nails will help correct the bowing...

Once that was done it was time to put the first floor on.  The floors of the kit are all wood, (nice wood too!), in fact the only MDF on this is behind the bricking and some of the roof sections.  The instructions do not say to use nails to attach the first floor to the foundation, however, with the warp being as bad as it was we made the decision to add nails to help stabilize and correct the warp.  I had to make sure that my dh positioned the nails where they will be hidden and not to interrupt decorating later. 

With the floors attached and both foundations finished, I next dry-fitted the nosing.  Upon doing so, I realized that I need to pre-finish the foundation first, so my next step is on hold for a bit.