Thank you for the kind words on my village. I started my personal collection in 2004, previous to that I got to enjoy my dads collection and my grandma's who started collecting in 1946.
Will, believe it or not that Windmill Hacienda was one of my first houses and I got lucky it was in a lot of some pretty undesirable stuff. I used Tom's cornstarch cleaning method to remove a ton of black soot from it. When I take my village down I'll grab some better pics of it and some measurements. I know its missing a tree on the right side, it has a nifty little holder for it.
If anybody wants to play a game.... On my big village there is only one house that is not an original or made in Japan house from the 30's, 40's or 50's. It has an original base but it was missing a house so I built one. We'll see if anybody can spot it.
-Brian
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I had to paint the body twice to get it close to the same color as the original house I used for inspiration, I think the first time I painted it, it was a darker blue.