Entry Facade (Grand) Print
Coffin
Parts:
  • Sheets of 1/8" plywood
  • Box of 1.5" screws
  • Sheets of 1" 4'x8' foam
  • Lots of 1"x4" studs
  • Adhesive ground coat
  • Brushes or sprayers
  • Electrical tape
  • Plexiglas
  • Tools
  • Paint
Description:

The facade takes a long time to build, but in the end it is well worth the effort. We started out by building wall panels from 1x4's and 4'x8' sheets of plywood. Most of the wall panels had windows or odd shapes cut into them to accommodate the shape of the house. Then we covered the panels with 1" sheets of bead board foam, using Liquid nails as the adhesive. The next step was to cut out the doors, windows, and all the odd shaped edges. Then we drew on the foam with a pen where to carve the stones. Mostly they were just rectangles placed at random selections, but at the tops of doors and windows we made it appear as if the stones were stacked to hold the weight of the rest of the stone above. We just copied what we thought real stone walls would look like. A hand grinder was used to carve out the initial lines right down to the wood, and then a rasp was used to round out the edges and give each stone a random look. This process takes the longest and is the most tiring, but it's what makes it look so real. You may want to wear a mask when doing this step since you will be breathing all the fine foam particles that are flying around.

Now that you have all the foam panels carved and looking like white stone, you are ready to cover them and make the surface hard. Ask your local building supply center, or better yet, your local concrete supply store about a material called "Adhesive Ground Coat". This stuff comes in bags just like concrete, and all you do is add water and paint it on. It will give your foam a hard coating that is fairly resilient to damage unless you put it on too thin; it will also make is water tight. We mixed it up so it was a little runny so we could use a hopper sprayer, and it went on real fast and made an even coat. If you plan on brushing it on, or need it to fill in any cracks make it a slight bit thicker, like pancake batter. Once all the panels are coated, leave them overnight to dry, and then you can either paint them, or splatter paint them like we did.

The splatter paint was done by either dipping a brush in your paint color (black for us) and then flinging it at the board to create tiny drops all over. Or you can go out and buy a good quality weed sprayer (the kind you pump up and it sends out a small stream), and adjust the nozzle until you get a spitting kind of spray from it. If you wanted to add more depth to the texture, you could add a second color like white, but we thought it looked fine with just one.

Now the fun part, where it all comes together; setting it all up. This step is easy if you have lots of ladders or scaffolding, and a few extra workers. We assembled the facade in about four hours, and then we went back and made trim boards to hide the edges where you can see the ends of boards. The trim was just 4" wide 8' long plywood with 6"x6" foam squares glued on with 3.5" gaps between each. Then they where screwed on and ground coat was painted on over them.

The windows were found at Multi-craft Plastics in Portland, OR. They were 2'x4' and 2'x6' pieces found in their bargain bin. We attached them making frames by ripping 1x3 studs in half, and then slapping them on the back side of the windows and screwing through the front. Some of the lower windows turned out to be exactly the same width as the plastic, so we built two frames that sat in the window casement and then sandwitched the window between them.

Washes and vines and damage can be added later if you desire an older look to your facade, ours will have this done.

Click for larger image Click for larger image Click for larger image Click for larger image Click for larger image Click for larger image Click for larger image Click for larger image

Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 January 2014 13:45