A Bluestocking Knits

Here is the carpet-shop-to-be — Houseworks' "Two-Window Shop" from their "Street of Shops" series — dry-fitted with masking tape to make sure that everything goes neatly where it should.  To be honest, there is really very little to do with this kit building-wise, as each of the four walls is already assembled and all I need to do is slide the edge of one into the slot on another, and it's done.

The plexiglass for the windows is separate, so that you can paint the frame and mullions first, then glue in the "glass" — the door is already mostly assembled, with the top of the frame held only by cellophane tape (long-dried in this case), so that again the plexiglass can be removed before painting the door frame.  No need for masking, hurrah!

The kit interior is also nicely done

There is a very pleasing attention to detail here — the door frame has a neatly-mitered edge around the "glass", and there are fine reveals around the door and windows.

The interior door does not come with the kit — I had picked it up from the giveaways table at one of the meetings months ago, as it happens, thinking it would be good to have on hand.

The millwork is very handsome.  The door angles look odd only because it is slightly ajar in this photo! — the plaque on the false front is, however, noticeably crooked and glued down tight.  But this is really the only flaw I see in this particular kit.

(I'm not really wild about the false front, as it happens, so am not sure yet what I'm going to do with it.)

The plexiglass roof/ceiling fits snugly into the wall assembly — a nice touch.  The glue is a bit loose on the wall trim here, after some 30+ years in a box.

This door really wants one of those brass letter slots at the bottom, doesn't it!

I didn't know it until now, but there is a place in Pennsylvania called "Street of Shops," a collection of "Victorian" store fronts into a sort of indoor mall — Houseworks is an American company, I find, so I suppose these particular builds could be American or English to suit the particular owner. They looked immediately English to my eye, sort of Portobello Road, possibly because there isn't nearly as much Georgian/early-Victorian left in America as there is in Britain!  Well, perhaps I'll be a bit more ambiguous about the location of my shops than I first expected …