Paint the walls with brown and grey

Back at the bungalow, wall painting has taken place. There are tow surfaces to consider. The white render was simple - a coat of Humbrol 147 dry-brushed with white. I wanted something to contrast with the 147 coloured window frames but nothing as stark as pure white.

The walls are a sort of fake stone I presume. A coat of dark stone was followed by No.64 on the faces of the blocks. My first attempt at this wasn't successful, the base coat hadn't dried enough for the lighter colour to show up. I didn't want it fully dry though as the mix of colours would tone each other down a bit and produce a more harmonious result.

Left to dry overnight, the results of a dry-brush application weren't to my liking either. I wanted more paint so the grey stood out from the brown. Using a sponge to apply the paint might have been an option but keeping the grey off the white walls might have been tricky.

In the end I used a technique I will call "wet dry-brushing". A flat brush is lightly loaded with paint and then applied at a very shallow angle so the entire side of the brush hits the surface in one go. Then it's dragged across the stones leaving paint on the faces. This seems to work with no grey ending up in the mortar lines. You could get the same result with lots of dry-brushing but it would take an awful lot longer.

Finally, the windows and doors were fitted. At this point I discover that the back door isn't mentioned in the instructions, nor on a sprue...