Aubry's Guide To Finishing A Putz House

Getting Organized Can Help A Lot

Aside from tips, tricks, and techniques organization can ease the whole finishing task.

Modern And Classic Putz Houses Are A Bit Different

Modern style putz houses are similar to classic putz houses. But they differ from them in significant ways.

A classic putz house is a single building on a box base. Sometimes it is surrounded by a fence with a single tree. Rarely, if ever, it had window and door trim. Finishing is straight forward.

Finishing a modern style putz house is more involved because there are more elements. Trim is a basic part of the modern style house. This is usually painted in contrasting colors. A single tree has given way to gardens of trees, bushes, and flowers.

What started out as a traditional Christmas decoration has turned into a multi-seasonal decoration. Now there are spooky Halloween houses. Pastel Easter houses are growing in popularity. Inventive crafters are finding ways to create holiday villages to decorate their homes throughout the year.

A Suggested Way To Keep Things Organized

I have found that doing things in the following order really helps. I don’t leave anything out. Also, I can stop after any step. It makes it easier to pick back up again when I return.

Before you glue anything together, apply the base coat. This both protects and strengthens the paperboard.
Make the base first. Prime, fill, and apply the topcoat. You will have to think about where you will place all the design elements. I even draw a little diagram so I can keep track of everything.
Make the fence and other ‘built’ elements, but don’t attach them yet. Prime, fill, and apply the topcoat.
Collect and make all of the plants you will be using. Prime, fill, and apply the topcoat as needed.
Assemble the house but do not add the trim. Prime, fill, and apply the topcoat.
Prime, fill, and apply the topcoat to trim. Attach it to the house.
Place the house on the base.
Add the fence and other built elements.
Now is the time to place the plants.
If you are doing a winter scene where there are snowdrifts, this is the time that you apply snow. Then you apply ‘deep’ snow glitter.
For other times of the year, you can add grass and flower scatter now.
The final step is to apply the magical trace of glitter all over the scene.

The Base Coat

Paperboard does not like water. It disintegrates when it gets wet. We are going to use water-based paint and other finishing products. So we need to do something to seal and protect the paperboard.

Also, paperboard tends to warp when it is painted on only one side. You must coat the paperboard on the inside and the outside to prevent this problem.

The master crafter’s secret base coat finish is lacquer sanding sealer. It slightly penetrates the paperboard sealing and protecting it. It helps prevent warping when applied to both sides of the paperboard. You only need a light coat to seal and protect the paperboard.

Lacquer sanding sealer comes in two forms:

The first way and easier to find is the brush-on kind. It is available at all the big box home improvement stores. It is great for woodworking projects. But if you brush it on, you wind up putting on too much, which ruins the paperboard.
The other way is in a spray can. It is a little more expensive, but it is a better answer. You just spray on a couple of light coats without flooding the surface. You can order spray cans online and have them delivered directly to you.

Correcting Construction Boo-Boo’s

No matter how careful you are assembling your putz house, you will occasionally have gaps and scratches. Minor flaws are concealed by the primer coat. Bigger flaws require patching.

Patching is easy to do with the right tools and materials.

Elmer’s Carpenter’s Wood Filler

Buy model E855. It comes in a tube. White is the preferred color to patch paperboard.

Follow the instructions on the tube. It will tell you how long to let it dry before sanding and painting.

Palette Knife

You could use your fingers to apply the filler. Besides being a bit messy, you introduce oils from your fingers into the filler. The better way is to use a palette knife.

Palette knives are small enough to work the fine detail of a putz house. You don’t need anything fancy.

Emery board

This nail care staple also doubles as a file to quickly remove any large bits of filler.

Sandpaper

The final smoothing step is accomplished with sandpaper. 220 grit is the recommended grit for the filler. Be sure to lightly sand so you do not damage the paperboard. As a final step try using 500 grit sand paper to remove any tiny scratches.

The Primer Coat

Primer is the second coat. It’s job is to conceal irregularities in construction and paperboard as well as give a uniform base color for the top coat.

Filler Is Great But It Is Not Paperboard

After you fill any big boo-boo’s, you will want to give your house a uniform finish. Primer helps fill in any minor irregularities, too small for filler. Filler and chipboard don’t absorb paint the same way. So the filler spots will stand out when you put on the top coat.

Chipboard Color Is Splotchy

Kraft chipboard is not a uniform color. It is speckled with darker brown inclusions. If you put a top coat directly on the paperboard it will look splotchy. Primer fixes the problem by creating a single uniform color.

One Last Thing – Its Not The Best Color

Chipboard is brown. If you put a top coat directly on it, the top coat colors will dull. If you want festive bright or pastel colors a white primer works best. If you want dark or spooky colors a rust color primer works best.

Brush-on Primer Is Great For Very Small Or Very Large Projects

If you are doing a small or medium volume of projects, white craft paint does the job. The big box discount store is probably the best place to get it. If you are an active crafter you may already have some in your tool kit.

If you are only doing a few houses, then you only need a small amount. The small bottles (2 oz, 59 ml) will do a bunch of houses. If you have a larger number of painting projects, then you may want to get the larger bottle.

If you are thinking about doing a very large volume of projects, the big box discount store is still the place to go for primer. Across the store from the crafts section you will find the paint section.

They custom mix interior house paint. So they have cans of ‘base’. Base is snow white interior house paint. They add ‘tints’ to it to create the different colors. It is usually available in quarts and gallons. Select the least expensive interior white paint base.

You Get Superior Results More Easily With Spray-on Primer

When you are in the paint section of the big box store you should also see cans of spray paint. Spray-on primer is clearly marked ‘primer’. It is more expensive than brush-on paint, but it gives you more control. Just spray on light coats to give yourself a good base.

It usually comes in three colors – rust, gray, and white. White seems to work best for bright or pastel seasonal colors like you would use for Christmas or Easter houses. Rust is a nice primer for the darker colors used in Halloween houses. Gray is a neutral so it works as a reasonable compromise between the other colors.

The Top Coat

Topcoat is where you put all of the festive seasonal colors putz houses are known for.

Paint

The big-box discount store’s craft section remains the best place to get the paints you need. There is usually a large assortment of craft paints in small bottles(2 oz, 59 ml). Be sure to get the matte finish.

If you are painting trim pieces separately from the rest of the house you will attach them after their topcoat dries.

Colored Craft Sand

You can use colored craft sand as part of the finish. It creates a textured surface that can add interest to your creation.

You can get colored craft sand at the same big-box discount store you have gotten the other finishing supplies.

Sand is applied in four steps:

Use a brush-on craft paint color that matches the sand color to paint the ground color for the sand.
Apply a light coating of PVA(white glue) diluted 50:50 with water using a soft brush.
While the glue is still wet sprinkle the colored sand liberally over the surface.
After the glue has dried, gently tap the excess sand from the building.

You can recover any sand on a paper plate for future use.

Painted Snow

Snow drifts on roofs, around chimneys, windows, and doorways are added once the topcoat paint has dried. This effect is created by painting the snow directly onto the topcoat. Primer white is the easiest and most effective choice.

If you are adding a colored sand finish, you will want to add any painted snow effects before the sand layer.

Final Thoughts

Congratulations, you have completed “Aubry’s guide to finishing putz houses”. You can refer back to this guide as you are working on a house. You can use it when you are planning your next project. You have everything you need to know to create beautiful finishes in one place.

As you saw in the guide, there are many techniques used to finish a putz house. Some of them apply well to Christmas villages. Others open the door to creating houses for other holidays. No matter what season you are decorating for the techniques you have learned in this guide will let you tell your own story.

Whether it is a classic putz house or their modern cousins, you now know how to create the perfect finish for your own creation.

Aubry’s Guide To Finishing A Putz House