A Lazarus Project house

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 11:10 pm

I bought this house a number of years ago and it sat on a shelf in the basement neglected and sad. When I got it I could not believe it was in as bad a shape as it was and really didn't know how to approach the rehab of this all coconut house. Being a little one was NO help at all. When I got into the project it was in far worse condition than I had initially thought. I took a stiff brush to the base and scrubbed off about a teaspoon of fine dirt. It was still REAL bad so thought perhaps I could scrub the mud off with water. That helped but a hole in the base developed and that is when I discovered it was like dry rot. I am not sure exactly HOW the top of the base got so stained with dirt and rotten nor how the front and below the door got in such warped and bad condition - but have speculated it sat in a garage or barn just under a broken window pane and lots of dirt sifted down as did rain water on the front of the base. The bottom is in particularly pristine condition! So something strange happened.
I first tackled the base. I discovered that the dark brown parts on the base which was incredibly rotted and need to be removed. Fortunately the cardboard on the bottom and separators were in good shape. It became necessary to cut out a rectangular piece of the rotted area and replace it. Not so easy to glue this patch in place as it looks and get it even with the existing base but I used some of the water putty to level it up and fill holes after the patch was done.

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 11:27 pm

After getting the base under control I undertook to work on the house which was FAR worse than what you could see on eBay where I bought it. In this first picture you can see I have cut out the area around the "hole" and patched the one in the roof. I had never had to replace a light hole before but in this instance it really was necessary to take out the back wall as the curve of the front of the house had to be straightened with an iron after first wetting it thoroughly. The lower photo shows how straight I was able get it. Also the cardboard under it shows the patch I cut out for the roof. I achieved this patch fairly simply. I cut out a triangular piece from the roof and put a small piece of white paper and drew an outline of the triangle and pasted that to the cardboard and cut it out. A fairly easy accurate patch.

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 11:45 pm

This last set wraps up this TOTAL restoration that until now with PETE'S Wonderful Magical Coconut it would NOT have been possible.
This house was one I always admired but would often see it bring a terrible price especially when you consider it is not at all uncommon and fairly small. Often for $50 and up but after it got done I could almost see it. And often they were in not in very good shape and I believe this one was nearly as bad as it gets. Rotted cardboard is the most discouraging thing I have ever encountered and wasn't able to replace it on the lower part of the front and one side of the house even though chucks were falling out. So I reinforced it around the perimeter with strips of card which stabilized it substantially. In the second photo you can see that I have used the Durham's Rock Hard Putty (water putty) to replace bits and pieces around the bottom of the house that kept falling out being badly rotted. In addition I filled the cracks and got the base fairly level. I finally got the lower part of the house stabilized and painted those areas of the house that needed it after first scraping off the residual old coconut and most of the base (I should have painted ALL of the base) a light blue. I then brushed on a "sticker" consisting of about a 50/50 mixture of Aileen's Tacky glue and water and sprinkled the coconut on. This is the fun part to see it transform into a sad little thing to a magical little house right before your eyes. This one had a mix of a little bit of red in basically lime green for the roof (the original finish) along with a white and black mix for the house. I got a bit more black in than I should have but didn't have enough white to thin it down much. Not to bad for a couple of days of tinkering around.

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sun Jan 26, 2014 11:49 pm

And finally a couple of finished shots and one of it in place on the mantel putz! Feat accompli!

Post by **BrianB** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 2:19 am

Dang TOM!!! That is a crazy restoration!! So cool to see. You really pulled it back from the brink!!!

Post by **paulrace** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 8:39 am

That's great, Tom. Thanks for posting. Maybe it will inspire somone else to take on a "basket case."

Post by **Tom Hull** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 1:07 pm

BrianB wrote:Dang TOM!!! That is a crazy restoration!! So cool to see. You really pulled it back from the brink!!!

More like a Resurrection!

Post by **les** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 3:46 pm

Now there's HOPE for some of those sad little houses in my workshop. Thanks for the step-by-step!!! Have to get some of that water putty stuff!!!

Post by **Janet** » Tue Jan 28, 2014 11:26 pm

To the MASTER of Restoration……Beautiful!

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:16 pm

BrianB wrote:Dang TOM!!! That is a crazy restoration!! So cool to see. You really pulled it back from the brink!!!

And here is the Original auction site photo. I have NO idea why I bought it. It turned out worse than the lousy photo when I got it. It took YEARS before I was able to work up enough hutzpah to tackle it.