Because these houses will be lighted, the plans from the first have called for some internal furnishings in the dining room and sunroom because those windows are large and not covered. The other rooms, I just figured the curtains would be the line of demarcation. As I get closer to closing up House 1, though, I get more and more worried about what's going to be perceptible from the outside with good lighting inside, even with curtains.
This is a long way of saying that I got totally diverted Saturday to thinking about internal furnishings, or at least shapes that would suggest internal furnishings.
The dining room table and chairs, a fantastic kit by SDK, put together by wonderful daughters, has been in the works for a long time. Because the second floor is already on (for stability and I figured it would be better not to have the furniture in place while the second floor and lighting work was going on because it involves a lot of tilting and tapping), it ended up being easier to get the table and chairs in place by gluing them together first.
The more I thought about the internal lighting and what would and would not be visible from the exterior with the curtains, the more I became convinced that shapes and outlines would be apparent. In a classic mushroom factor, that led to creation of some couches and chairs that will only be seen in silhouette. (I hope)
Having gone that far, I made some plants for the dinning room. (Those wall panels are not on yet; they're just standing in place to see how the plants will look through the windows.)
Then, I got to worrying about the visibility of the stairs. That's always been an issue in my mind, because there is a window on the landing of the main stairwell and it's a pretty big window. Templewood Miniatures has a great staircase in one of its structures, one that turns and has a landing, and I'd communicated with them about whether they'd sell those alone, but I never buckled down and did the calculations to figure out the dimensions needed here. Since I don't really need the stairs themselves (I think/hope), I played around with porch railings and leftover bits to suggest a staircase. It's not done yet, but it's coming along and I think it will do the trick given that the main window on the first floor will be under the porch and the landing window is curtained. Fingers crossed. I think some internal walls on the second floor may also be needed. They'd need paint but surely not doors? You can see the mushroom factor here. We'll see what happens next. With the couches and a chair or two, I think some more of the sides can go on soon, unless I get more carried away. We'll see....
After the columns are in place, there's a header that sits longside exposed on top of the columns. That works better in large chunks glued together in advance, so that got done for all three houses today, too. The header is harder to bevel than square material: this is a place where it would have been more sensible to get square rather than accurate lumber. Still, the headers are all cut and glued, so after the columns are capped, this should start to go together and look like something.
Getting ready to assemble the shell of House 2 yesterday, it became clear that there were a few hitches in moving forward on that step. For one, Rube Goldberg called and wanted back his design for the staircase in House 1 so it wouldn't get replicated, and the wiring still needs to be run in the next two houses. So while I'm mulling over a better solution for the staircases (and consulting Michael, of course), I moved ahead with other stuff that will be necessary for the assembly, working on the furniture. Progress and more furniture coming in the mail, as well.
It requires making all the furniture (shapes), so that occupied most of the day. Meanwhile, I tested the lights in House 1 and discovered that the walls are such that the dining room (the most completely furnished) doesn't show well, given the placement of the walls and lights. Maybe installing one more light in the dining room is in order? Not sure yet and mulling it over. Lesson learned for next houses, though!
Then came more embellishments for views through windows. 
Then, despite my earlier stance, a rug. Okay, multiple rugs (though no pictures of the ones for upstairs and the front room.)
The gold paint on the couch and chairs doesn't show up too well here; my thinking was that it might reflect the light a bit. We'll see how that turns out. As the next set of furniture comes together, I'll try to get better pictures.
None of that holds a candle to the Rube Goldberg mechanism that became the staircase. If I'd planned ahead better, there could have been a real unit here, instead of the organic-and-messy version I created. It wouldn't have been as fun, though. 
This is a long way of saying that I got totally diverted Saturday to thinking about internal furnishings, or at least shapes that would suggest internal furnishings.
On the verge of (finally) assembling House 1, it became clear that some of the pieces were just a little warped, enough they wouldn't glue well. Michael came up with a solution as I'd already pressed them without effect. This probably won't be necessary for the other houses because the painting technique I adopted by the later houses really reduced the warping. Will see as we go, but especially the skinny bays are hard to get in just the right place, and any deviation from square really shows, even after the glue dries. The angles mean that gluing in place can be a trick, too. Hoping this will work. They weren't a lot warped, just enough, and so we're hoping this will cure it.
