716 Mary St

I needed an appropriate project for my Cricut demo at the Railway Modellers Meet last weekend. The three gable-end houses between the Pembroke Milling Company warehouse and the freight shed presented manageable opportunities and so I decided one of them would be the subject.

None of these houses appears to have survived the 1912-13 engorgement of the yard. So, I don’t have any photos of them, beyond their roof shapes and a partial end wall for one of them. Even so, I like to work from a prototype reference as I find it makes a richer model.

I set off, therefore, on a virtual tour of Pembroke via Google Street View. I love that this technology enables me to tour a place 3000km away, while sipping a glass of something I mustn’t sip while driving, and causing almost no pollution. Combined with the satellite view, I was able to find several candidates where the rear of the building was visible, and settled on 716 Mary Street.

It’s a simple building, 1.5 stories tall, as were so many houses of this era, due to the tax code. Without a reference, I might have come up with something similar, but I would have aligned the leanto extension with the house wall, rather than allowing a slight jog. I also would have made the extension roof a straight shed, rather than requiring the short descending roof to match the porch roof. Heck, I might not have even designed box eaves for the house, although I would have known that was a cheat. Box eaves are common in Ontario. It is features like these that make for a more interesting model, and that is the reason I like to start with a reference photo if I can.

Before starting the demo, I designed the whole model, including a plywood core, which I cut on the laser. True to form, I didn’t get any work done in the demo, and so, I’ll have to do it here at home.