YARD OFFICE
Associate Editor Bryson Sleppy built the yard office from a laser-cut wood kit, Blair Line’s Joe’s Cabin. We’d used this kit on a previous project layout, 2012’s Virginian Ry., as a company house, but Bryson modified it slightly to represent a yard office.
The kit is designed to be built on posts so it can be installed on uneven ground. Since our yard was flat — in fact, we installed a sheet of cork alongside the yard to bring the ground up to the same level — Bryson omitted the posts, putting the base at ground level. This meant he had to slightly raise the annex on the side of the building, which normally hangs a bit lower. To fit the annex’s roof under the eaves of the main building, he had to cut it down slightly.
This was, in fact, Bryson’s first ever wood kit. Building it was more complex than the plastic structures he was used to, but he found that aspect satisfying, as it was more like the experience of constructing a real building. Wanting to ensure his first-ever wood kit was sturdy, he reinforced it with additional 1⁄8" stripwood interior bracing.
He assembled the structure without its peel-and-stick trim so he could spray-paint the building and the trim different colors. He used the same two shades of gray Eric White chose for the interlocking tower, spraying the trim before removing it from its carrier sheet. Since the solvents in the paint have the potential of weakening the adhesive, Bryson added wood glue to make sure the trim stuck. The last step was to glue the screen door swinging half-open, for that poorly maintained vibe.