Chinchillas over Normandy

The intact house: £11.50 from Charlie Foxtrot Models

This weekend, I have been assembling an mdf house that I bought from Charlie Foxtrot Models last week. The kit fitted together very neatly. I especially like the engraved roof, complete with broken and slipped roof tiles.

Kevin from Charlie Foxtrot advised me to render the outside walls with Chinchilla Bathing sand, which is made of very finely ground cork. Alesia at my local pet shop was a bit disappointed that we weren't getting a new pet, but didn't bat an eyelid when I told her it was for plastering a model house.

In my first attempt to cover the walls, I watered down the pva glue too much and it left bald patches on the wall. I also varied between dipping the walls in the sand and sprinkling it on from above. My conclusion, based on this first attempt, is that the smoothest finish is achieved by applying undiluted glue to the surface, then rolling this gently in a bowl of the sand.

I need to spray the walls white tomorrow, before coming back with colour from a Duluth tester pot. This model doesn't come with shutters, but I will try to make some to reinforce the French feel of the building.

I am really enjoying this project and suspect I'll be picking up a lot more houses in the coming months. For one thing, what else would I do with all that Chinchilla sand?

I covered the roof last and it is much smoother than the rest of the model. The dark patches are drying out quickly.