When I called my sister, to warn her about the house, I asked her what Elizabeth's favorite color was so that I could paint the house a color that Elizabeth likes. Elizabeth likes turquoise. I was not about to paint the house such an unusual color, so I asked for a second color choice. Elizabeth also likes blue, so I chose to paint the house Cape Cod Blue.

I made a few changes to the exterior of the house. The kit did not come with siding, so I made my own by cutting 'clapboards' out of strips of wood. I replaced all the splintery plywood window and corner trim pieces with basswood. I also left the gingerbread off of the gables, since the pieces that came in the kit were cut from particularly bad pieces of plywood, and I was not interested in cutting my own or purchasing new gingerbread.

I discarded the front doors that came with the kit and designed my own. I made the doors out of basswood and installed stained glass windows and 'raised panels'. The interior of the door is stained to match the interior trims, and the exterior is painted a Black Cherry Red with blue accents to match the house color.

I added horizontal and vertical pieces of wood to the porch to give it more dimension. I also made the front step wider.

I covered the exterior of the chimney with 'stones' and made a new chimney cap. I made the stones out of plaster of paris, with a bit of brown tempura paint swirled into the plaster. I used dollhouse stucco for the mortar. I also applied stucco to the base of the house and painted the 'concrete' with grey paint.