New England Farmhouse: HO by Creative Laser Design

[jbvb]

2025: Sadly, Creative Laser Design, which was a Vermont company making mostly HO wood kits, has no presence on the net anymore.  They offered several kits with a Vermont Northeast Kingdom flavor.

8-Feb-2009: I noticed this kit at the W. Springfield show. The prototype is near Lyndonville Vt, but the same style of extended farmhouse is found all over northern New England, and it would fit well in my Massachusetts North Shore layout. This weekend I had planned to build scenery, but the attic is cold and I'm trying to avoid getting the nasty fever my wife had last week. And I needed the house's dimensions to position it in the new scenery at East Bexley anyway, so I worked downstairs in the warm.

This is the basic shell, lacking the shed doors and the side porch. The laser-cut parts fit quite well, which is not something every manufacturer manages.



This is the underside - I made a 2nd floor from 1/16" basswood, partly to keep the house walls square, partly because it's going to be only a couple of feet from the edge of my layout and people may be able to see inside a bit.



Orionvp17 commented:

"Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn." This is the essence of the connected farmhouse, it's a kid's rhyme, and it's the title of a book with more information on the connected farmhouse than you'd ever really want. Great reference material!
The connected farm didn't just "happen." It was a deliberate design, and the owners occasionally moved the whole thing around, up the hill, down the hill, and so on to take advantage of prevailing weather. All this Before Trucking.
In a nutshell, the Big House had the front parlor, his office and the bedrooms. The Little House had the kitchen and her workrooms, from which she ran her businesses. The Back house had his workshop, the woodshed, and as far away from the Big house as possible, the privy. The barn had (wait for it. . . !) the animals.



All of this was arranged around the dooryards, the relationship to the road, and so on. And in an era of Big Snow, Very Cold Winters and no electricity, these designs made it possible to stay indoors to tend to the stock. If you were outdoors at night in January and missed the doorway, well, they found you in July when the snow went out. It's interesting stuff!
I'm curious: What are the overall dimensions of the kit? I scratch-built a similar building for a module and after drawing up plans, realized that at 26 inches long, it was going to be bigger than some of my factories! The model was then built to TT scale, which was a real hit with the contest judges....

9-Feb-2009: In scale feet, the kit is 25 feet W x 83 L x 29 H. The guy I talked to thought the prototype was built about 1870. The one I live in is 50 W x 80 L x 35 H, but it incorporates a center chimney colonial (heated w/fireplaces instead of stoves) and was built 1799 - 1811. In many cases (mine included) the "little house" is the original, built by a new landowner, with the "big house" and "back house" being added once the farm was earning a bit of money (or once they got the timber frame cut and the foundation built).

I'm thinking about a barn to go with this one, but it may have to be a partial structure as the space is about 18" deep to the backdrop and 30" wide. At any rate, it should more or less match the house as to era.

15-Feb-2009: I got the windows, trim and porches installed this past week, including brush-painting the interior, and then I airbrushed it Scalecoat White.



Material I added (not in the kit) includes the second floor, trim boards on the gables, the subroof on the side porch and the bracing/gluing surface timbers inside the gables. Next will come windows and window treatments, but I've got to get some more .020 styrene before I can do the sub-roofs for the house and shed. And yes, I'm going to paint the forgotten side-porch post once the glue dries.

I expect to weather it with India Ink washes and maybe a scratching brush,because my 2nd floor requires that the glazing goes in before the roof goes on.

16-Feb-2009: Dave Emery suggested adding shutters.  I replied In this neck of the woods, shutters lasted longest on houses owned by white-collar workers; The less wealthy and the purely practical replaced them with roller and venetian blinds more or less as they needed significant work. I'm aiming for a 'working farm' look, but thanks for getting me thinking about that:

I should do gutters and downspouts on the main house at least (people who removed gutters usually didn't plan to own the house long enough to worry about the sills).

[jbvb]

21-Feb-2009: I finished it today - I only put .060 styrene channel gutters on the visible side. The downspouts are Plastruct .050 wire-core styrene rod held on with loops of fine copper wire.



This is the new scene it's going into, I think it will work out well:



It's the less interesting side of the house, but it would have faced the road in real life, so I can't bring myself to do otherwise.

22-Feb-2009: We had a little sun this AM, so I took the finished model outside for some simple shots.







f I was locating it where both sides were visible, I should add more gutters,one or two stink pipes, an electrical service entrance and maybe a bracket lamp over the shed doors. But I got started on finishing Addams Ave Pt. 2 (other side of Bexley Yard) instead.

[robert goslin]

Nice work James.  Looks like it would have been a good kit.  Shame they went out of business
The shingle roof looks good. Is it photo realistic paper ?

[PRR Modeler]

Very nice looking build James.

[ACL1504]

James,

This is one impressive build. Amazing what can be built using styrene. Howard Zane built 80 of his structures using Evergreen Styrene walls.

Looks great.

Tom

[jbvb]

Thanks, Rob, Curt & Tom.  Rob, the printed self-stick laser-cut roofing came with the kit. I haven't seen anyone else color roofing like that, but with only one roof on the layout colored that way, it's not a distraction.

[GPdemayo]

Great looking farmhouse James.....

[Janbouli]

I have a few kits from them in N-scale including this one , they were really good priced and nice to build. You did a good job on it.

Here's mine in N-scale


And the long barn to go with it, still needs shingles.

[ACL1504]

I haven't seen anyone else color roofing like that, but with only one roof on the layout colored that way, it's not a distraction.

James,

If I remember correctly, Northeastern Scale Lumber made those roofing shingles. They come in sheets.

Here is the link and they are still available. I've used them on a few kits and they are the best.

Tom

https://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/products/shingles/ho-scale-shingles.html

I used them on one of the FOS Flat Iron District Build.

[deemery]

That looks like the Northeastern shingle sheets.  They sell them pre-assembled, but I used to be able to order them unassembled in large sheets (for my long mill buildings.)

In my Lamson thread, I discuss how I applied Pan Pastels to tone these down a bit, for a better looking result.

dave

[ACL1504]

I have a few kits from them in N-scale including this one , they were really good priced and nice to build. You did a good job on it.

Here's mine in N-scale


And the long barn to go with it, still needs shingles.

Jan,

Nice builds.

Tom

[jbvb]

Thanks, all. Jan, your N scale builds look good.  I thought about a barn of that vintage, but decided to build something newer. Of the 3 farms on my layout, this farmer is the one who went into debt to modernize (why Havestore metal silos are called "blue tombstones" by some).



The scene as finished in 2015. Threads on building the half-Gothic Arch Barn and Pole Equipment Shed are on my list to re-post here.

It looks like a few of the Northeastern shingle strips had already lifted a bit in 6 years.  I should go after them with a toothpick and yellow glue.

[Janbouli]

I really like that barn James.

[PRR Modeler]

Very nice modeling from both James and Jan.

[Zephyrus52246]

Your farm looks very "New England".  It would be appropriate here in Iowa as well.  I remember our banker making a similar comment on the blue silos.  That every farm that had one had probably gone bankrupt. 

Jeff