A tale of two garages

 As I was building the diorama with the two 3D printed Sears houses, I wanted garages for them that would fit in with the style of the houses.  The same vendor that sells the houses also offers a 2 car garage but those would be too wide for the space available.

So looking around I found that the Blair Line single car garage kit would be a good fit for the space and  those also matched the style of the houses.  While searching for these I also found a M/T 100 ton hopper with a road number I did not have.

The garages started out as identical kits but I wanted them to look somewhat different.  Something built in the 1920s or 30s would have seen some changes by the 1970's.  Besides the colors, which match the colors of their respective houses, I did a few other small things.  On both of them I did not use the narrow corner boards which I found too fiddley to work with and did not fully cover the seams between the side walls.  Instead I used some narrow Evergreen styrene angle strip.   

The kit comes with two different options for the vehicle doors.  I chose the old fashions swinging doors for one garage and the tilt up / roll up door for the other.  This was painted aluminum color as many early doors such as there were bare metal.  On the garage with the metal main door .020 x .040 styrene strip was used for the trim to give a different look.

The kit comes with the option of having the window and people door on either side of the garage so I was able to assemble them with those features facing their respective houses.

I also used variations on position to make the two garages seem a little different.  Here are the two garages set temporarily on the diorama which itself is set temporarily on the layout.  The garage on the left is set all the way back on the lot while the garage on the right is set forward about 20 scale feet.  Currently working on the landscape and details on the diorama but the garages are done and will soon be glued into place.

Rooftop details for houses

Depending on the layout height, the roofs of model buildings are often more noticeable than they are in real life.  In a recent post, I showed how I used some available 3D printed parts to detail the roof of a commercial building.  Link to that post HERE.  The roofs of houses can also have some detail added although they are somewhat more limited and different.  Here are a few things I've recently done to the roof of a single story 3D printed house kit.

If the model has a simulated shingle roof made from plastic, a weathering wash will help bring out the detail.  Even if the rest of the outside of the house is not weathered, the roof should be.  Something that can be added to the roof of a house are plumbing vents.  I made these using .035 styrene rod and glued them into holes of the same size.  In the photo below I decided that all of the plumbing was toward the back of this small house.

By the late 1950's most homes had some sort of television antenna on the roof.  While that is a tiny and you would think very delicate detail to have on an N scale building, a nice sturdy product has been available for over 30 years from Gold Medal Models.  I bought a set like this when they first came out and recently purchased another set as I had used up all 20 antennas over the years.

These antennas have a tiny hole to insert the mast into.  .010 wire works well for a mast and a drop of super glue will bond the antenna and mast.  I placed the antenna on this house next to the chimney as often these antenna masts are mounted with straps to the chimney.   In the photo below the antenna is mounted and the plumbing vents have been painted a dull silver color.  If the house is more modern then the vents can be painted flat black as this pipes are now mostly ABS plastic.