Finally some gluing - Steps C: 2-8

 Finally some gluing - but first more prep work, sigh.

I sanded down the gesso to smooth the pieces - kind of regretting painting all the surfaces now, it would have saved effort if I had worked out which surfaces were likely to be covered up (like floors).

Then I did a preliminary dry fit to check if the tabs were going into the slots - a lot of them weren't.  As usual, some of the slots were too short, or too narrow, or the tabs were too long or slightly mis-positioned.  So I had to widen some of the slots and trim down some of the tabs.

Having identified which surfaces were going to be ceilings (undersides of the 2nd and third floors), I gave them two coats of white emulsion paint.  All's that did was highlight two dents in the wood I had missed, and also reveal how much grain was still visible.  So more gesso, more filler, and more sanding, and then three coats of emulsion (the last with a roller).  I used quarter-inch quilters masking tape to mask off the places that have to glue to other pieces.  My palm sander died partway through the sanding - I checked and I've had it since 2007 so it had a good innings.  Surprisingly, the price had only gone up by £1 in all that time, so I ordered another which arrived the next day.

Another prep job was to apply filler to openings where the edges are likely to remain on show: the false hall doorway, the study doorway, and the openings in the right and left wall - and then sand them so they are smoother.  This is what makes it all tricky: trying to think ahead to get jobs done while things are accessible.

The false hallway is going to be closed off once constructed, so I applied some wallpaper to the back wall of it, and also onto the side wall because with my wider doorways, the side may be visible.

For the same reason, I glued some wood strips on the hidden side of the doorway, so that it looks like door architrave from the viewing side.

Then I could finally start gluing!  It makes me laugh that the box says 'easily assembled with glue' when it is anything but easy.  Inserting some tabs into slots makes it harder to insert others, the lack of precision engendered by the rough wood leads to small inaccuracies which add up to tabs slightly missing their slots or surfaces not meeting properly....  let's just say you need a lot of clamps, many hands and much patience.  I'm using Gorilla woodglue.

The initial construction is attached to the back, and then the right and left walls are glued on.

The base is glued on together with the living room floor support

 - then the bedroom wall and false hall entrance

The next step will be assembling the porch base, which will already force me to make some decisions on external decoration. I've punched out the various pieces and have spray sealed the ones that will be painted.

Some of the wallpaper that I ordered, the stuff from Minimum World, has arrived. I am relieved to find that I like it. It's a bit of a gamble ordering from online in terms of accurate colours.  I'm not much of a decorator but I think I'm going to go for an Arts and Crafts feel.