Tower roof, tower decoration, chimney

 This week I've been finishing the exterior of the tower, above the porch.  I decided to go with the clapboard after all, and applied it up to the tower window level.  My husband agreed that stopping there looked a bit odd, so then I spent hours trying to shape pieces to go around the curved windows.  The siding I am using just splintered instantly if I tried to shape it, so I ended up using a mixture of thin plywood and even cardboard to fill in around the windows.  It still looks a bit odd, but less conspicuous.  The accumulation of error from the tower pieces not assembling into a perfect octogon continued to multiply, meaning that every piece of clapboard and trim had to be individually cut for its destination and it's all a bit asymetrical.  Maybe the owners hired a really bad carpenter :)

Eventually there will be pink or white roof brackets holding up the tower roof, on top of the deep pink board.

Tower roof

I strengthened the extension cone further with another layer of papier mache inside, and some wood glue into the tip.  I glued small pieces of coffee stirrer behind each protruding tower roof piece.  Once those were dry, I glued the extension cone down onto the tower overlapping the coffee stirrer pieces.  The end result is fairly sturdy.  I am procrastinating about attempting to shingle it.  When I was looking through my New England photos (see below) I found a great picture of a similar tower which is finished in lead or zinc, which would be a lot easier to simulate.

Chimney

I was getting ready to shingle the roof, and have glued on the strip wood at the bottom endge to lift the first row of shingles.  Luckily I suddenly remembered that the kit includes a chimney.  For some reason the chimney is only three sided and is open to the back.  So I cut a back piece from some scrap ply.  The kit also includes some weird pyramidal flues.  I've looked through my many photos of wooden Victorian houses from my New England holiday and none of their chimneys have flues like that, so I think I will just leave them off.  All the real chimneys were brick, so I will probably finish mine in brick as well.