This is a question for any of you who have ever painted the Walthers Merchants Row I structure.
As you can see in the catalog photo, each storefront has a different color of brick and facade trimwork. What I’m wondering about is the rear of the building. It looks like the various window frames on the back match their counterparts on the front, but the storefront with the large stone blocks (2nd from the right in the photo) has regular bricks on the back. I’m wondering, should I paint all of the bricks on the rear in a single color - assuming that each proprietor would only want to pay for fancier bricks on the front even if they are the same size? Or should the brick colors on back be exactly the same as the front ones?
BTW this structure will be visible on both sides on my layout, that’s why I’m trying to get this right.
I would make the bricks on the back a more brownish than reddish color, they often used cheaper quality bricks on the back of a building than the finish bricks on the front. Also the mortar would be more roughly applied and a more a tannish color since it was also was not finish grade.
It depends if the Historic District Commission gets involved. [:D]
The backs of buildings can provide a nice opportunity to add a lot of interesting details. Consider that many old retail buildings had apartments above. Originally, this would have been the residence of the proprietor, so the steps up might have been inside.
Later on, the apartment upstairs might be rented to anyone, so an exterior stair might be scabbed onto the back, and one of the upstairs windows converted to a door.
Or maybe there was an addition tacked onto the back, so instead of the original brick/block wall, you’d have some sort of wood or (horror of horrors!) vinyl siding!
If you can see the backs of the buildings as prominently as the fronts, think about detailing them just as prominently!
If I get a chance, I’ll shoot some of the backs around Cambridge to give you some ideas. You’ll also see that there’s a lot of faded advertising signs (Coca Cola 5c) and bars on windows, and a myriad of other little details to have fun with.
I recently started on that same structure and had to put it away for a bit as it frustrated the heck out of me. I painted the back all one color brick actually red oxide auto primer makes a nice red brick color after weathering. Figure that is the back side of the buildings or the alley side if you will so most people who painted their store front different colors to stand out from other business didn’t give a hoot about the what the back of the building looked like. Unlike sort of modern era stuff where you may have a trendy restaurant with a rear entrance for patrons the most the back alley ever saw was the coal truck and the garbage man
When you figure out how to paint all those little window details let me know will ya, driving me nuts.
Yeah that’s sort of what I was guessing. I’m trying to figure out if the building was built for one owner who then leased it to the various businesses, or if each business owner built their own place and simply ‘tacked on’ to what was already beside them.
Lee, since this will be in the shadow of a steel mill, I’m not sure such a neighborhood would be considered worthy of “historical” preservation [;)]
Yes I’d like that very much, especially if you could get a both front view and a back view of the same building(s)[:P]
I feel your pain, some of my storefronts are on their 3rd different color because I didn’t think the original colors looked right (IMHO). A friend of mine who already built one of these advised me to paint the windows and trim before doing the bricks, since it is supposedly easier to touch-up a window frame than brickwork.
Craig, that seems like a good idea except I’m not sure I’d want to walk alone in that kind of area with an expensive camera…![:O][:D]
Ken, a place I go for some train videos is right behind several buildings. You can still see the old billboards, and old addvertisements. They are in a row, like the old days. I will have to try to get you a shot, today/tomorrow. Might help you out.
Ok Ken here you go!!! Not the best shots, but I hope it gives you a idea. Also the one shots are through the windshield, and I didn’t have a chance to stop. I guess its a good thing living near old coal towns.
Robby those are fantastic!!![8D][bow] It never occurred to me that the walls on the backs of these shops often get painted white, splashed-on over both bricks and mortar - that certainly is much easier to model, than having to apply 5 different colors of brick paint and dabbing-in the mortar lines.
Looking at the photo from the Walther’s catalogue, it looks like those buildings would have been built individually, so each back section would be a little different from each other.
If you decide to go with brick across the back, each building would probably have a little different shade of brick as each builder would have gotten his materials from different sources, or at least different batches of brick from the same source.
I was told by someone who worked in a LHS who seemed pretty knowledgelable that the Merchants Row Seriesis a modified a copy of old individual Magnuson kits which were individual structure kits maybe thats why they look like you mentioned. I can’t attest to weather this is true or not but it does sound plausable.
Its strange to me that Robbies fine photos show no graffiti on the backs of those buildings. Not that I want it there, its just a nice clean towwn I guess. Good photos for the Merchants row though. I’m about to start on those kits. BILL
