The wheels are finally turning and the first street of City Circlez is now under construction. I have so many play sets miniatures and dolls its time to finally set them up.

My father, the civil engineer, thankfully has a staff including some highly skilled carpenters. So my first request was to build two three storey structures to host my apartments and street stores.  The first structure shown here is 5 feet long, 1 1/2 feet wide and about 4 feet high. the extensions in the front and two sides will be the sidewalk and they are 8 inches wide. Between buildings the roads for the cars will be suspended and easily removed if I need to stand between for pictures.

Aerial of Section A

Section A without base

Side view of Section A without base

This whole structure will be raised onto a stand with wheels. Why wheels you ask? Well this ‘city’ will eventually be made of about 9 of these structures set up in the middle of the room, so after playing, shooting stories etc I want to be able to push them to the side walls of the room when not in use. The base also has space for storing odds and ends.

The second structure will be pretty much like the first only I have extended the width to 2 feet. I tried putting in furniture for an apartment on the second storey and it proved to be quite a challenge. My new tenants are requesting kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room space so I am trying to make it work in the space available. Here’s a picture of my attempts of arranging furniture before walls are cut to partition off the rooms.

Initial Furniture Placements

My plan is to have walls, doors etc within the apartments and then exterior walls of the whole structure. Those exterior walls are going to be the tricky part. I’ve always wanted to shoot a story from all four sides of a room. So each building will have removable walls with windows permanently inserted into each exterior wall.

The first building is called Section A. It will have the Post Office, Laundromat and Hair Salon on the ground floor. Please note you may see a lot of pink play sets pieces, that’s all going to go! I’m working towards a realistic setting so spray cans and gallons of paint are on hand. The second storey of Section A will have an apartment I hope to host 4 roommates in college. Right now the Poppys in my Poppy Parker collection are dying to have a place of their own. The third storey will tentatively have a married couple.

Apartment Bathroom Placement

Post Office & Laundromat

Laundromat

Hair Salon

The second building is called Section B. Ground floor will have the Coca Cola Diner and the Mini Market. Second storey will host a family and the third storey a single woman.

Mini Market

Coca Cola Diner

The final structure I had built is a standalone office with four adjacent rooms. The Modeling agency will go here. Three offices and one kitchen.

Stand Alone Office Structure

As you can see there is lots to work on and lots to see. I’ll share the overall plan of the city in another post, then you’ll see the general gist. I’m looking forward to documenting this process and sharing with you the stages. Feel free to ask any questions.