DIY Miniature - Winchester Mansion

Hi guys, it's Kat. Today, I'm going to show you how I built this miniature version of the famous Winchester Mansion. This video is not an in-depth tutorial because this is a huge project. Instead, I'll show you how I built the entire estate with a ton of tips and tricks along the way. This project uses very simple supplies including cardboard and coffee stirrers. One of my favorite features is that the house lights up making it look super spooky even in the dark. Without further ado, let's get started. The main structure of the house is built using cardboard so that's where I outlined the main shape of the house. I started with two simple house shapes and cut out all the necessary pieces for the windows and the doors. A tip to create texture or flexible cardboard is to rip off one side of the paper backing. We will also add additional design fixtures including the roof. Paint all the inside areas black. Then, I paint all the exterior areas beige. Fold the cardboard flaps over and add in the door and the windows. An easy way to add interesting texture is with these craft scissors and some thin paperboard you can get from paper box. I cut out some thin strips and stacked those together. Cut off the excess. Add it to the top center of the house. A little beige paint and it looks perfect. With some coffee stirrers, I assembled the surrounding. Add on the ends of toothpicks for detail. The red coffee stirrer will be one of many. I use these for accent detail around the Moving a bit lower, I take some jumbo popsicle sticks and cut off the round edges with a minor handsaw. Glue them together for a long piece. I'll use this as the floor for my second story porch. Right below that, use two long pieces of cardboard as the roof of the porch armor. Double stack some coffee stirrers for the railing front and glue it on. This panel piece goes right on top of the center railing just split it in half. Add beige paint all over. Using some matchsticks and clear plastic packaging, I assemble some simple windows. These will fit into the holes we cut. For more decorative detail, glue on coffee stirrers painted olive green. Here I'm using a hole punch to create some tiny circles. Stack and paint them for decorative detail. For some structure on the porch garland, I draw a circle, cut it out, cut out a wide triangle, and square it to make a curve easily. This is a super simple way to add architectural detail. I add on another small building to the left side of the house and some details to finish it off. Here is the second triangular awning for the right side of the mansion. I use the same squiggly strips that I used for the other roof arch. Clean up the raw edges and add it above the window. With some jumbo popsicle sticks, I build a simple porch. Add it below the arch and use matchsticks as the support poles. With a simple piece of cardboard, glue it on as the roof. Moving back down to the second floor, I finish the porch around the corner. Here I'm using coffee stirrers for the shingles. Just cut them down to size and glue them on, overlapping them a tiny bit from each other. While that dries, paint the walls of this corner black because it will be the interior of a room. I add the shell of a room around it and then paint that beige. This window will close off the extra space. These coffee stirrer shingles are all dry so I'll paint them red. Here's another idea for shingles. I take some paperboard packaging and cut out thin quarter inch strips. Cut little snips into them. Wrap them around the awning. These paper pieces can easily curve around this cone shaped awning. Overlay them to create a realistic roof texture. Paint it red. Cut another piece of cardboard for the center on it and then use coffee stirrers on the roof. I add on a middle roof line between the two houses. I also add on another roof to the right side for the attic. Cut out a door in the front panel of the attic. Add on a roof for the building in the back and then its walls. Paint it beige and add in some windows. With some coffee stirrers, I make a simple pergola. Paint it olive green and add it above the big window. Let's jump back to the left side building. For a simple pyramid shaped roof, I first cut out a pentagon and then remove one of the triangles. Push the remaining sides together for a pyramid and add it on as the roof. Next, I take a rectangular piece of cardboard with one of the paperback pieces ripped off. Roll it up and glue it behind a small building. Take some of this brown craft paper and cut it into thin long strips. Roll it up until you have a circle that's at least one and a half inches in diameter. Push up the center using a toothpick and use paper glue to help keep its shape. Add it to the bottom of the column that we just put on the house. Take more of that brown paper and wrap it around the corrugated cardboard to cover it up. Paint that beige. Paint the bottom bell shaped beige as well. Here I'm simply using some toothpicks to act as the cylindrical tower. Glue it all around the interior of the cylinder. Roll up two rings from paper and add them to the tops of the toothpicks. While we're here, paint the roof shingles on this pyramid bed. At the top of the cylindrical building, we need a roof. I take the brown craft paper and roll it into a cone shape. Cut off the excess and glue it to the top of the roof. While that dries, I add on some details to this back building. Let's move to the front of the house. For the front door, I use craft matchsticks and coffee stirrers to create this design. It's a double door with a thick frame. Paint the inside a light brown and the door frame a dark brown. I create this simple archway with cardboard and coffee stirrers and close the entryway. Slip the door into the center bottom of the front of the house. To finish the first floor, add some paneling strips and then paint the left side of the front porch olive green. Then add in some windows. With some coffee stirrers painted white, add on a strip to all the roof lines. This helps create a seamless clean look. For the top left area behind the cone shaped tower, add on another porch area using cardboard for the floors and walls. Paint the shingles of the cone shaped building right. Add more cardboard to the back of the building for a sound structure. Paint the exterior of all these walls beige. For the foundation of the house, stack two big sheets of cardboard together. But fill in any big holes. After some simple sketches, I make the structure here with more cardboard. This will be in addition to the main house that we just built. Assemble windows and doors for the cutout holes. For the roof of the right tower, I take these cardboard pieces to form it. Add a window to close off the top of the tower. Here I'm adding coffee stirrers all around the windows. To create another opening for the balcony door, I just mark the lines and cut that rectangle out. Add toothpicks to the opening for spindle detail in the top window. Take some of that brown craft paper and wrap it around the corrugated cardboard to clean up the look. Add in some pieces of thin paperboard horizontally for more detail around the spindles. Draw and cut out a chimney shape from more paperboard. Add it to the front center of the cylinder building. Add coffee stirrers around the edges to create a ledge. We're gonna do something fun here. For the roof of the circular building, I first cut out a circle from the cardboard and then cut one sixth of it out. Score lines out from the center and glue the ends together. This makes the cone shape rim. Add the huge main house we built next to this additional area. This is really coming together. Last building for this project, the super tall observation tower. I start by cutting out four isosceles triangles for the roof. Glue them together and add a trapezoid shape to the bottom of each side. Add it to a square piece. The base of the tower is made of four long rectangles. Cut out six windows for each one of the four sides. Glue the four sides together and then add on the roof. For some texture, I cut out a thin strip of cardboard. Rip the paper off one side and add it under the roof. Assemble all the windows. We won't need a lot of them. The best glue I've found so far that sticks to plastic is gemtac so that's what I'm using here. A fantastic way to make the glass and the windows stand out is to scratch it up. The scratches make the glass so much more visible than a super smooth piece. Here I use some coffee stirrers to create a panel that is then used for the railings. With some thinly cut paperboard, I create the look of vinyl siding. Just make sure overlap the pieces a bit. Cut off any excess. These vinyl windows are fully functional and slide open and shut. In my next video, I'll show you in detail exactly how I made them. They're super fun to make and look amazing. Position this tower behind the main house. Let's finish this project with the final details. I used the paperboard strips as shingles for a roof. This is the same technique we used before but on a much larger scale. Paint the entire roof red. For the chimney shaped area, I glued off some artificial greenery. It's made of paper but looks so realistic. Add coffee stirrers to all the rims. Cut off the excess and paint them red. For the front porch, I cut out a few segments of wooden dowels and paint them all green. Then simply glue them onto the porch awning. Add on coffee stirrers, paint it white to all the roof lines and on the tops of the roofs. The last accessory we need is the finial on the highest peaks of all the roofs. With some thin bamboo skewers and some wooden beads, simply slip a bead over the pointy end of the skewer and cut out a one inch segment. Paint it white and glue it to the middle peak of all the roofs. Such a small detail but they add so much character to the mansion. Last but certainly not least, let's light this baby up. I'm using these LED candle flames. They produce a yellow light and flicker just like a real flame. I pulled the plastic tip off to expose the bulb. To install them, first poke some holes in the back of the building with a pointy skewer. Then just stick the bulb through that hole and that's it. Super easy. Add in a bunch of bulbs so every room gets some light. That's it guys, the Winchester mansion is all complete. This project was a huge undertaking. It took me just over a month to build it. I learned so much along the way and it makes me appreciate the real life Winchester mansion even more. I really hope you like this video. Give it a thumbs up if you did and make sure to subscribe for more. I'll see you next time. Bye!