The Bungalow in Foamboard

[Anglia105E]

This new project was started during December 2024, shortly before the Christmas period. For this one I am scratch building a bungalow in 1:43 scale, using mostly foam board and balsa wood . . . The bungalow has three bedrooms, a living room, dining kitchen, bathroom, entrance hall and a garage. There will be the main front entrance door, also six interior doors, two French doors and a door to the rear of the integral garage. Both the kitchen area and the living room area are having French doors, rather than sliding patio doors . . . All of the exterior walls and the interior walls will be painted. with carpets fitted, and some furniture added.

I started the build by hand drawing a floor plan onto the A3 size base board, and this floor plan was obtained from a property website. Each of the wall panels has been mounted onto the floor plan, with quilting pins holding them in place . . . Later, when everything is ready, the wall panels will be fixed in place using PVA glue.

I was inspired by an Adam Savage video on YouTube to build this structure, in which he was building his childhood home from foam board. Whereas Adam completed the build as a white only foam board architect's model, I decided from the beginning that I was going to fully paint the bungalow.

One of my most accurate 1:43 scale diecast model cars is a 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I and this will be inside the finished garage of the building.

Here is an unusual approach to the posting of this W.I.P., because I shall show some photos of where the project is now, so nearly six weeks into the build. and then refer back to previous photos of how various parts of the bungalow were assembled . . . I am fully expecting the roof to be the most challenging stage of the build, so I am not thinking too much about that just yet !

Thanks for having a look guys, and all comments welcome as usual.

David

[PHPaul]

Nice work so far, David!

That floor plan strikes me as a bit odd by US standards.  It appears that the main door (what we'd call the "front door") opens into the hallway between the bedrooms.  The only other exterior door I see opens into the utility room.

Am I missing something here?

EDIT:  I re-read your initial post and see what appear to be "french doors" opening into the kitchen and living room.  The garage is considered the "back" of the house?  

Edited January 18 by PHPaul

[Anglia105E]

3 minutes ago, PHPaul said:

Nice work so far, David!

That floor plan strikes me as a bit odd by US standards.  It appears that the main door (what we'd call the "front door") opens into the hallway between the bedrooms.  The only other exterior door I see opens into the utility room.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks Paul, and please allow me to explain . . . The front door as we say in England too, opens into the entrance hallway, which has six interior doors that lead to each individual room. The kitchen at the rear of the bungalow will have French doors opening out onto the rear garden area. Also, the living room at the rear of the property will have French doors, and they too will open out onto the garden area . . . The French doors do not yet have an opening cut of the rear walls, which is probably what is misleading you ? There is also an access door at the rear of the garage . . .

David

[Dave Van]

NICE work! 

[Anglia105E]

15 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

NICE work! 

Cheers Dave, and thank you . . . This will be quite a lengthy project, so probably more than 6 months. 

During 2024 my builds amounted to just TWO . . . which was the 1:16 scale Rolls-Royce Phantom III at 6 months, and the 1:24 scale Model T Ford at 2 months.

David

[PHPaul]

My comments were based on the drawing.  It just seems odd to have bedrooms right by the front door.  I typically expect to see bedrooms at the rear of the house with kitchen and living areas in the front.  Probably just me. 

[Anglia105E]

4 minutes ago, PHPaul said:

My comments were based on the drawing.  It just seems odd to have bedrooms right by the front door.  I typically expect to see bedrooms at the rear of the house with kitchen and living areas in the front.  Probably just me. 

Well, I suppose it is rather an odd layout, and if the front of the property was facing onto a street, then you wouldn't expect to have the bedrooms there. However, if this bungalow has open land on three sides, for example, then it might make more sense. Imagine there is open land to the rear, also open land to the front and open land to the right hand side. Then there could be trees and bushes to the left hand side, as you look from the front of the property,, providing further space between the nearest property of the next door neighbor . . . This allows the bungalow to have living quarters and kitchen / dining quarters looking out onto the land at the rear, so including a patio and garden area.

Here is a photo of the rear of the bungalow, showing the doors from the kitchen to the right, and the doors from the living room to the left . . .

David

[Can-Con]

The bedrooms in my house are both front and rear. 

Master in front and spare in rear on the right side looking from the street. Bathroom between them and kitchen and living room on the left side. 

Very common way of building a house in the '70s and '80s around here.

[PHPaul]

Taking maximum advantage of the view makes sense.

[Anglia105E]

As I was laying out the floor plan on the foam board base, I found it it helpful to place objects such as the car, and a figure, and also a greenhouse so that I could visualize the overall proportions of the plot . . . Each wall panel was carefully and precisely drawn, measured and cut to size. The most satisfying part of this process was calculating the position and size of the door and window openings. I have not studied as an architect, so all of this work is just me making it up as I go along . . . The window frames and the main entrance door were ordered from a company in York, and these are laser-cut from 1 mm Rowmark, which is a white plastic material from the United States . . . By cutting out the window openings slightly smaller than the window measurements, the frames fit tightly into the openings and do not require any glue to hold them in place.

Using my 1-2-3 blocks the walls and corner joints can be kept straight and true. Although the foam board does warp significantly when painted on one side with the water-based emulsion paint that I am using, the foam board panel straightens out perfectly once emulsion paint is applied on the reverse side. There will be wooden window ledges below each window on the inside of the bungalow, and also clear acetate for the glass. The garage doors have yet to be fabricated out of balsa wood, and they will have working hinges . . .

Here are a few more photos to illustrate the above description.

David

[PHPaul]

Coming along nicely.

Did you know there are people out there that - dare I say it - actually use 1-2-3 blocks for machining?

That's just crazy...

(I actually have three sets - one set on the modeling bench, one set in the mini-machine shop and one set in the main shop)

[Anglia105E]

13 hours ago, PHPaul said:

Coming along nicely.

Did you know there are people out there that - dare I say it - actually use 1-2-3 blocks for machining?

That's just crazy...

(I actually have three sets - one set on the modeling bench, one set in the mini-machine shop and one set in the main shop)

These 1-2-3 blocks are the most useful tool that I have purchased in many years, and I don't know how I have managed to build anything without them.

I agree with you Paul . . . one set is just not enough. One of the most convenient functions that they provide is to hold down the baseboard structure, while I am working on other parts of the building. Simply placing a block inside a couple of the rooms keeps everything from moving around. The same goes for measuring, drawing and cutting foam board pieces, as one block keeps the piece of foam board nice and steady, and both hands free . . .

Machining? . . . Oh yes, you could use the blocks for machining. Presumably, that was their original purpose  :-}

David

[Anglia105E]

On 1/19/2025 at 1:42 AM, Can-Con said:

The bedrooms in my house are both front and rear. 

Master in front and spare in rear on the right side looking from the street. Bathroom between them and kitchen and living room on the left side. 

Very common way of building a house in the '70s and '80s around here.

Yes Steve, my bungalow is intended to have been built during the 1950's over here, so the room layout might have been more common at that time.

David

[Anglia105E]

Here is a short summary of the recent work at the rear of the bungalow . . . The kitchen now has a pair of French windows, which have been scratch built from white Foamex board cut into strips for the frames. The outer frame is made from balsa square rod, with the glass cut from thin sheet acetate and glued onto the inside of the door frames , , , I have cut out some pieces of white card to form the horizontal and vertical bars that divide the window panes.

Two tiny holes were drilled into the lintel above the doors, and two short pieces of brass rod were inserted into holes in the top edges of both doors. The same procedure was used at the bottom edges of the doors so that the doors can be hinged in the open or closed position . . .

The next step will be to paint the outer gable wall of the kitchen in the pink colour emulsion, and paint the inside of this wall in the blue colour.

David

[Ulf]

Hi David

Your house looks great. Interesting that you also chose to build houses in foamboard. I have come to the conclusion that the contact adhesive in the picture works best, but that since it is a contact adhesive, it does not provide any opportunities for adjustments. Vallejo's slightly funny putty works well as well as MIG's structure paste. Regardless of the above, my experience so far is that foamboard is not only much cheaper than plasticard. My previous attempts to build houses in plasticard have been very fragile without being very detailed, brittle and sensitive to impact.
My project is based on a card model in a Revell kit but it, like the rest of my projects, will have to wait until the bone is healed.

 

[Modelbuilder Mark]

looking forward to more. 

[Anglia105E]

6 hours ago, Ulf said:

Hi David

Your house looks great. Interesting that you also chose to build houses in foamboard. I have come to the conclusion that the contact adhesive in the picture works best, but that since it is a contact adhesive, it does not provide any opportunities for adjustments. Vallejo's slightly funny putty works well as well as MIG's structure paste. Regardless of the above, my experience so far is that foamboard is not only much cheaper than plasticard. My previous attempts to build houses in plasticard have been very fragile without being very detailed, brittle and sensitive to impact.
My project is based on a card model in a Revell kit but it, like the rest of my projects, will have to wait until the bone is healed.

 

Thanks Ulf, and your building looks great too . . . Recently I have been reading that super glue is not good with foamboard, as it attacks the foamboard core between the two layers of paper in a bad way . . . The PVA glue is what I would describe as a ' friendly ' glue, because it takes overnight to dry slowly, and you can move your walls around to position them correctly, before the glue sets too quickly, and it is washable in water . . .

When I exhibited a foamboard building in a marquee tent during June one year, the foamboard warped very badly, as it does not like the high humidity. This time I am finding that with water based emulsion paint applied on one side only, the foamboard does warp a lot, but once the paint is also applied on the reverse side, the foamboard straightens out perfectly . . .

David

[Anglia105E]

5 hours ago, Modelbuilder Mark said:

looking forward to more. 

Thanks Mark, and more is on the way !

David

[Anglia105E]

Today I managed to get hold of a PDF image file that shows the roof of the bungalow directly from above . . . This was a matter of concern for me, because the roof construction is rather complicated. There are eight panels of tiled roofing, and the few images that I had did not show how the roof must be constructed.

Also today, I fabricated the double garage doors, using a photo of some 1930's Art Deco doors . . . These are scratch built in balsa, and I have applied two coats of Humbrol Gloss Green enamel paint, which is being allowed at least 24 hours to dry before handling. The main front entrance door to the bungalow has also been coated with the same gloss green paint.

I have made a table from balsa, which has rounded corners to the table top and four sturdy legs. This table is for the living room and there will be a second identical table for the kitchen . . .

David

[Anglia105E]

Having scratch built the double garage doors from balsa, I have made the hinges from 0.8 mm brass rod, so that they can be open or closed.

Also, I have made up the main front entrance door from the parts sent to me from a company in York, and this is now ready to have hinges fabricated. The table for the living room was made from balsa, and a second table made for the kitchen area . . .

I picked up some kitchen appliances on Ebay, which are 3D printed in resin, and these are really nice. The freestanding gas cooker has 6 parts, also a sink with 5 parts and a washing machine with 3 parts.

I purchased some bungalow plan drawings from the company that provided me with the floor plan, and they kindly added a roof plan to the set, at a cost of £9.99.

The drawings are in PDF format, and I got my A4 printed plans photocopied in A3 at the local library for one pound.

 

David

[PHPaul]

Nice progress David! 

I'm going to have to look into resin 3D, there's some amazing stuff out there.  Quite a lot more complex than printing with PLA tho.

[Anglia105E]

9 hours ago, PHPaul said:

Nice progress David! 

I'm going to have to look into resin 3D, there's some amazing stuff out there.  Quite a lot more complex than printing with PLA tho.

Thanks Paul . . . Back when I was 3D printing, I found the PLA process quite complex, but as you say the process of printing in resin is even more challenging. This seller on Ebay has a wide range of small products in different scales, all of which are 3D printed in resin . . . The quality of these parts is excellent, they are nice and smooth, with no lines or flash. I was expecting the freestanding gas oven cooker to be more or less a one piece solid model, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that the cooker has 6 parts to it. There is even a piece of clear glass (plastic) for the oven door . . .

The 3D resin printers are usually more expensive than the PLA printers, and you have to purchase additional consumable products to use them.

David

[PHPaul]

11 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

The 3D resin printers are usually more expensive than the PLA printers, and you have to purchase additional consumable products to use them.

Which is precisely why I haven't jumped on them yet.  At the moment, my PLA printer is down waiting on a part.  I have some stuff I want to print but nothing critical and I have other things to occupy my time while I'm waiting on the part.

[Anglia105E]

The last couple of days have been spent productively, creating the paneling on the six interior doors, using the tip of a small screwdriver, and these balsa wood doors were then painted with Revell Matt Brown 88 enamel on both sides . . . I then made up 12 interior door frames from thin white card, which were also painted in the same wood brown colour.

Following the overnight drying of the enamel painting, I have painted the remaining wall panels with emulsion paint, some in Magnolia and some in Earth Balance (yellow). The Magnolia walls are for the entrance hallway . . . 

The next stage will be the setting up of the green front door. This door will hinge open to the right, and it will have a brass letter box, brass Yale lock and a brass handle. The main front door support posts on either side of the door frame cannot be glued to the two adjacent walls until those walls have been glued to the baseboard later . . .

David

[Anglia105E]

The six interior doors have been fitted in place around the entrance hall area, with each door leading to the six rooms. Also, the wall panels of the hall are now painted Magnolia emulsion . . . The process of hinging the front door was quite tricky, and I think it has turned out reasonably well. Having super glued a length of brass rod to the back of the door, on the inside, this rod fits into a tiny hole that is drilled up into the balsa lintel. At the bottom end, the rod fits into the foam board base board, and the door opens and closes as I had intended . . . The following photos show the front door with the brass letter box in place, and also the brass Yale lock fitted . . .

David