There's been a lot of playing around and planning taking place. This house is handmade to Hobbies plans, so I do think it would be best to approach it with that in mind, particularly because not everything is to an exact measurement in terms of the interior doors. When I commissioned the wonderful Glen Carlisle with Stoneworks https://www.rrstoneworks.com/ to make the windows and interior doors, I sent him a cardstock template for the windows and a basic 5" x 2" measurement for the doors. I knew that measurement was not going to work for all the interior spaces as they are not all the same size, with most being only slightly smaller than this measurement. It seemed easiest to go about it in this way though. After receiving them, however, I had to start really considering how best to approach the actual installation.

Here's what was received in terms of the windows. I've lined one of the windows he made for me on top of one of the original windows - it's the one at the upper section of this picture. The two at the bottom show the new window vs the original. I'm very pleased!

I painted the windows white:

As for the doors, Glen offered to help save me some money by offering to make the pieces for the doors and ship them as such, allowing me to glue them myself:

I glued and clamped:

Now, when I say I've been playing around and planning, it really all comes down to the baseboards and the size of the doors vs the actual space of the interior.

The first dilemma: Due to the fact that the house can't be taken apart to get better access to those spots, I can't mount the doors directly INSIDE the built-in door spaces. I mean, I considered tapping pins into both the interior house and the upper and bottom sections of the actual doors so they'd swing, but this solution would most likely just split the veneer overlay panels. There's also the fact that there simply isn't enough room to maneuver both hands and tools around inside, particularly in the narrow hallways and one of the rooms at the back that attaches to the hallway, for me to use the necessary hammer and pressure to get them in.

The next dilemma: Even if I could figure out a way to get them in with pins, the simple act of cutting the doors down to fit those spaces presents the very real possibility the act would again split the thin veneer panels that have been glued down on either side of the door.

Splitting the door veneers would just be tragic. A conundrum!

I started thinking, what if I create trim to settle the doors, which would mean the doors don't need to be cut down at all. Sort of like this:

Doing this creates new dilemma's:

The baseboards will need to be cut down to accommodate for the trim. But even if the doors had fit in those spots I'd still want to add trim, so this would have become a problem regardless, I believe.

But, as you can see here, if they don't fit inside the door spaces, there's going to be a gap on the opposing side, once installed:

Still, it seems like the best option to prevent damaging things. I may just have to accept this reality in the name of keeping it handmade. As my husband says, you really won't even notice the gap issue when the doors are open, only when they're closed.

From there, I had to start playing around with the trim and hinges, which I glued first:

I decided to do a test version. One with the longer side of the trim, and one with the narrow side. Once I started trying to nail though, even with the glue, the hinge pulled away. I'm hoping letting the glue set even longer will prevent that from happening in the future:

I managed to get them in, fortunately, but the nails are longer so they do poke out slightly on the opposite side. I don't think it would matter, really since it's not a significant length left over and they'll be mounted up against the wall. I can simply use the Dremel to grind the leftover down.

I'd prefer to install them with the narrow side though, but as you can see here, this does risk splitting the wood somewhat. This occurred on my first attempt, which can be seen at the top of left portion in the picture below. I tried again, closer to the other initial hinge install, and this time it worked perfectly without splitting. But that's all going to come down to patience, execution, and luck. There will ALWAYS exist the chance it might split using the narrow side:

Having done this also means that nailing the other half of the hinge into the door, which is about the same size, will risk splitting the veneer as well! I'm feeling discouraged but will just have to continue pondering and figure it out.

Once the cutting of the baseboards and trim take place, decisions will be necessary.

Last but not least, I shingled the roof and chimney stacks:

In my mind, there's moss on the roof, so I'll have to think on that a bit more once I've gotten further along.