City Hall Refurb

[Leben]

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a city hall refurb project I worked on last year. I scooped up this half of a city hall putz house in an ebay auction and thought I could make a new tower section. I used a cereal box to build the tower. In hindsight, I would have used a thicker card stock as the tower does seem a bit less substantial than the bottom portion of the building. I used my own coconut for the walls and roof (all the photos I have seen of an original clock tower seem to show the tower roof in coconut and the bottom roof in crushed stone. Does anyone who has one know if this is the case?). I made a new fuzzy window using duralar film and flocking. I repaired a section of the fence and roofline using crushed marble and gesso. And finally, made a new luffa tree and printed a clock face out from Paul's website. I think it turned out pretty well and have been meaning to post pictures of it here since last year. As part of my overall village I think it is difficult to discern that the tower isn't original. What do you all think?

Best,

Leben

[Howard]

A “world class” repair and restoration job! I’m impressed! Hope to see more of your village and any other projects.

Howard

[PutzinVT]

Great job.

Love the flatties too.


Steve

[Lucy]

You did a great job on rescuing this house. Now it can bring joy to people for many more years.

Lucy

[DCrowe]

Looks like a pristine original to me. Excellent work.

[maria]

Agreed!

[Lynn]

You did a wonderful job restoring this.

The cocunut is perfect

As Howard said please share more pictures.

[Clinton]

All I can say is WOW! Great refurb job Leben. Your coconut making skills are spot on. I liked how you "washed" out the clock to make it look more aged as well. I've been trying to make flocked windows myself for a few years, but just can't seem to get it. Any advice on that please? It all looks pristine vintage to me!

[Leben]

Thank you all so much for the kind words! I really worked hard on this one and there was a lot of trial and error involved to get it to this point. I regrettably did not take as many photos throughout the process as I should have. And since I worked on this about a year ago, I do not remember every specific detail . Clinton, I made many very unsuccessful attempts to recreate a flocked window that would blend in with the others on this house. I began by following the tutorial on Ted's archived website, using real red cellophane that I ordered off of the internet and some flocking I obtained on ebay. I could never get the cellophane to behave well. No matter what type of adhesive or paint I used to outline the grilles, the cellophane would always warp and shrink and just look messy. So I gave up on cellophane and got some red dura-lar from Hobby Lobby. I liked this material so much I have used it in all the window replacements I have completed so far. I cannot remember the specific adhesive I used to adhere the flocking to the film. Hopefully my memory will be jogged once I pull out all my putzing supplies this year.

I have attached a close up picture of the coconut for reference. The top portion is the new clock tower section with the coconut I made, the bottom portion is the old coconut. I think I was able to get very very close to the original texture of coconut. I restored a few other houses with this same coconut method and think it works very well. I will post some more pictures soon of other refurbished houses and if anyone is interested in the method I used to make the coconut I would be happy to share it!

Best,
Leben

[Pete R.Oehmen]

Hello Leben, Great job on the refurbishing. If I may ask what technique did you employ to place the glue so perfectly for the Fuzzy windows? Also, what equipment did you use to chop of the coconut materials? It's fun to see that you rediscovered making the Fuzzy's.