Establishing the dimensions of the longhouse
I started off by drawing on grid paper a preliminary sketch of the base and of each side of the longhouse (all dimensions in mm; scale 1:4 unless otherwise stated).
I established the overall length of the building at 500mm (just short of the usable length of the cardboard boxes I store my models in), and its width at 180mm. I allocated 270mm to the house portion, 120mm to the livestock shed, and 80mm to the storage room.
All the walls are 6mm thick, except for the gable-end wall, which I made 12mm thick on account of the dimensions of the bricks, as I shall explain later.
I established the height under the roof to 90mm, including 5mm for the stone foundation. I find this height to be appropriate for 1/32-scale toy soldiers.
I then established the height of the gable-end wall to 200mm: 110mm for the lower portion, and 90mm for the upper, sloping portion. The resulting gable, and roof, slope angle is slightly less than 45°.
Finally, I drew the door and windows openings (shaded light grey, see below for dimensions), and filled in the framework timber posts and beams (shaded dark gray).
At this stage I also established the dimensions of the model’s doors and windows, starting from standard dimensions of my own liking (these are the minimum dimensions that I believe look good next to 1/32-scale figures - they are smaller than they should be if the model were built exactly to scale, but look quite nice next to a toy soldier):
Door: 25mm x 50mm
Window: 15mm x 20mm
I drew the back door, the back window, and the gable windows to these standard dimensions, and stipulated proportionally the larger dimensions of the front door and windows, and those of the livestock shed and storage room doors.
The front door and casement windows feature attractive paned overlights.
The large door of the storage room has a wicket in one of the shutters
Note that the all doors and windows fit exactly into the corresponding wall openings, except for the large doors of the shed and storage room, which are slightly shorter.
Finally, I drew a sketch of the thatched-reed roof. As already mentioned, the roof slope angle results from the dimensions of the gable-end wall.
As to the hipped-end slope of the roof, I determined it by eye from the many photographs I found on the internet.
I completed my sketch establishing the size and position of the chimney, also working by eye.
The base structure
Having sorted out all the relevant dimensions of the building, I cut the base from 2mm-thick cardboard. I cut all the walls from 6mm-thick corrugated cardboard, and doubled the thickness for the gable-end wall.
On each side of the house, I drew and cut the door and the window openings. I then drew the stone foundation and the framework timber posts and beams.
This done, I glued the four sides of the house to the 2mm-thick cardboard base. I then added the partition walls delimiting the livestock shed and storage room compartments. I also glued a 5mm-thick floor piece to the house portion, to raise it level with the stone foundation.
I assembled the three pieces of the roof, trying to achieve an irregular, humpback outline at the ridge.
I then added three large triangular gussets to the underside, so as to strengthen the roof and insure that it rested square on the house. These pieces also made for convenient handling surfaces when detailing and painting the roof.
The thatched-reed roof
The thatched-reed roof of the longhouse was my first attempt at this type of model roof construction, and I am sufficiently happy with the result.
Having studied many pictures of thatched-reed roofs, I noted that the texture of a reed roof looks very compact and uniform. Also, the prevailing color of weathered thatched-reed roofs is not at all yellow or straw, but rather varies from dark greenish brown to grayish black.
After considering various alternative methods for texturing my thatched roof model (including using rough sponges, carpet, felt, and towels…), I happened to find in a supermarket a very cheap light grey polyester plush blanket, and resolved to use that.
I cut three pieces from the blanket, each somewhat larger than the corresponding roof section, and glued them to the corrugated cardboard. I then gave the plush several coats of diluted white glue, slightly raising the hair here and there to suggest the reed texture. When the white glue was dry, using a sharp hobby knife I trimmed the excess plush to the dimensions of the supporting cardboard structure.
Finally, I used diluted papier-mâché to seal the joints between the three plush pieces.
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