Scratch Building a small Office Building - Part 1of 2

I have a location on my home layout in need of a small office building for one of my industries, Kamloops Lumber. I decided to try my hand at scratch building this structure in wood, using scale HO lumber purchased from Mount Albert Scale Lumber. For this project the only ready-made components will be the four windows and three doors made from an assortment I purchased several years ago from Tichy Train Group:

I sketched all of the foundation, siding and roof components on graph paper, assigning dimensions to all sides, carefully measuring and cutting the components with a number 11 Exacto blade. I cut the dimensional lumber to length with a NorthWest Short Line Chopper II. The siding is board and batten style.

I attached supporting lumber to the interior of the sides and bottom to prevent warping. I used Aleen's Tacky Glue for my adhesive.

In most cases, I would have stained the lumber before assembly to avoid the problem arisign when wayward adhesive finds its way on surfaces to be stained. However, in this instance, I decided to do so after the walls and floor were assembled for two reasons: 1) I suspected that I may have needed to modify some of my parts as I went as this is a "one-of" project based on my initial drawings (as it turned out I didn't need to make any such modifications); 2) the stain will not be the final finish as explained later on.

As was described in an earlier post regarding creating a peeling-paint effect I decided to stain the exterior with Hunterline light brown stain. This is the colour that will show through the peeling top coat.

I wanted to create a removable roof to be able to gain access to the interior. I attached the interior walls to this removable roof. The following picture shows the rafters attached to the top of the removable interior wall structure which is made from heavy card stock. Note that the joists are complete with galvanized steel joist fasteners on the upper joints - these were not added to the lower joints because these are hidden by the attic insulation. I used thin pink packing foam for the attic insulation (the pink colour of the foam didn't come through very well in this picture due to the colour of lighting above my workbench).

Here is a picture of the structure with the interior walls in place:

I next attached the wood roof to the joists. The following picture shows the attic insulation a bit more clearly. Again, note that the removable interior walls are attached to the roof.

To be continued as Part 2 of 2 in my next blog post........