At last. I have three down with fevers which you might think would impact my time in a bad way. Not so much. Feverish kids are sleepy kids. Rowdy actually asked for a nap. No joke. "Mama, I go sleep?" Yes, oh yes heaven be praised yes!

On to more pre-assembly. For whatever reason, the openings for doors and windows are rounded and must be squared. The manual said something about why the window and door openings were rounded, how the tools that cut them were blah blah blah. Whatever. I used a file which would also work on toenails - of a tyrannosaurus.

If the door doesn't quite fit, take off a bit more. There are a surprising lot of openings to file. Why is this necessary again? Oh, blah blah blah. Right.

Glue! We're finally using glue!!!! We're assembling the chimney here - attaching the cap to the something.

And using lots of tape to hold the cap and something together while the glue dries.

And using more tape to hold the chimney to the cap and something as more glue dries.

Then the front steps. I used waaaaaay more glue that what's shown below. Seriously, that is nowhere near enough glue.

Don't you love action shots?

Now this is not in the instructions, but if you don't want to use tape, find a bottle of 1980s AquaMate to hold the pieces together. It must be 1980s AquaMate or it will. not. work. properly. I am not kidding. 1990s AquaMate won't work. 1970s AquaMate won't work. 1980s. Preferably 1985 because how else can you reclaim your childhood except by making use of the exact bottle of carpet cleaning formula that survived untouched since your very childhood? That bottle just screams Cyndi Lauper, doesn't it? Banana clips and leg warmers and big bangs?

And there we have it! Next up, window bays! For the rest of our dollhouse construction posts, see the Reclamation Project category in the cloud or below.