Make Your Own Old Ale House
This kit is for personal use ONLY. Please do not copy, distribute, or sell any part of this design or the instructions without my permission. Pre-Cut & Digital Old Ale House @2022 Jacqueline Smith
This pattern is inspired by McSorley’s Old Ale House in New York City. Built in 1854 and at that time named “The Old House at Home,” McSorley’s is New York’s oldest Irish pub.
The Old Ale House can be used as a stand-alone building in your village, or with other 2, 3 or 4 story buildings to create a downtown row of shops and houses.
Please read all instructions prior to beginning the project. If you are new to making houses, make sure you read and understand each step before placing your glue.
I consider this an intermediate kit.
Before you start your new kit, think about how you will want to decorate it. You can paint the house, paint the house and glitter it, glitter just parts of the house like the roof, use the kit pieces as a guide to cut out decorative paper that you can glue onto the house, or just leave the building white for a modern look. If you leave any portion of the house as unpainted cardboard, I suggest spraying with a matte acrylic sealer like Krylon or Modge Podge Sealer.
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Suggested Material List . . .
- Pre-cut kit has been cut from White Kraft Board. This is equivalent to 120 lb cover cardstock or cardboard. The façade is cut out of 100 lb. cover cardstock as the folds are too tight for the thicker Kraft Board.
- Materials for Digital version: White Kraft Board, Cardboard or Quality Cardstock. Cricut fine point pens in the colors of your choice.
- Alternative Pens and Adaptors: Cricut doesn’t have a white pen like I used for my sign. I tried the silver pen but it just wasn’t bright enough. Instead I used SAKURA Gelly Roll Classic Gel Pens, Opaque White Ink, Assorted Tips and a 17 pack Cricut pen adaptor set. This is actually the 3rd pen adaptor set I have bought, and without doubt my favorite. I had problems with either the other ones breaking, the pens not fitting in the adaptors correctly, or not having the adaptors I needed for the pens I wanted to use. I use the Sharpie Ultra Fine Point, the Sakura Gelly Roll, and the Sakura Pigma Micron Pen Adaptors all the time.
- Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue. I put it in a bottle with a thin metal tip. If you are new to making kits, you may want to use Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue as this allows more time for you to reposition your pieces if you make a mistake.
- Bone Folder – A bone folder helps you make sharp folds when you are using cardstock or cardboard. While the kit comes pre-scored, I strongly suggest you make the scoring deeper with a bone folder.
- Multi-surface satin finish acrylic paints in your color choices. I find that if I use the multi-surface paint I do not need to gesso the cardboard first. Two coats are usually required.
- To glitter the house: Extra fine glitter or extra fine iridescent glitter and Spectra Glitter Sparkling Crystals (mixed 50/50) and Modge Podge. I like to apply the Modge Podge with a foam brush to one side of the building at a time, glitter, then move on to the next side. You may like your building glittered with only the extra fine glitter, but I liked adding a slightly chunkier glitter to it too.
- To make the snow: Woodland Flex Paste, Woodland Soft Flake Snow, and Hemway White Ultra Sparkle Glitter. Apply the flex paste and sprinkle a combination of the soft flake snow and Ultra sparkle glitter over it while it is wet. Use a little Modge Podge on a brush to add more of the snow mixture once the flex paste is dry.
NOTES . . . (read before starting)
- Due to variations by each builder you may find a trim piece a tad longer than needed. If this happens, simply trim it down to fit.
- DO use the cutting guide below to identify all of the pieces! It’s always a good idea to lay out all of the pieces before you start so that you have everything in the correct place. I include a few extra window frames in the kit.
- The color coding of shapes in the guide are only used to help you identify pieces. Digital users should change these colors inside their software to suit their own needs.
Cutting Guide for Old Ale House …
Your kit will include either the Regular Back and Regular Bottom Insert with windows and doors, OR the Putz Back, Putz Bottom Insert, and a strengthening ring for the Putz hole, depending on which option you chose when you purchased the kit. The regular back, bottom, strengthening ring & trim are shown below.
Putz Back, bottom, strengthening ring & trim are shown in the picture below.
The SVG files were created in a way that combines elements to help with possible confusion on trim pieces. If you will be using various materials to create the project and need to separate these, simply “Ungroup” the selection.
Let’s get started . . .
The following instructions are to show you how the building should be constructed. I show the order of construction without any paint or glitter. Think about how you will finish the building and if any parts will need to be painted or finished before being glued in place.
There is no wrong way to paint, glitter and glue. Personally, I like to paint the trim and walls when flat, then glue the trim onto the building, add the vellum, and then glue the building together. I then glitter the completed building. However, I know people who glitter the building while flat before gluing it together. I suggest you try different methods until you find out what works best for you. Tutorials for various ways to decorate your house can be found on this website.
Constructing the Building
1. Put aside the front façade pieces for now. Fold all of your other pieces towards the back or inside (mountain folds.)
If you are going to use a brick paper for your building like my model, glue it on now. My digital kit includes two brick façade pdf files, one portrait, the other landscape. Print these out on your own printer at full size on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. For those of you making a pre-cut kit, the brick façade PDF files can be found here.
Also note the area in the front where the façade will go. After you glue on your façade in step 12 below, you may need to touch up the background around that area so it blends in with the façade. As I am gluing on paper instead of painting the area, I added façade colored paper to the area now.
The building is designed for the roof to be inset below the top of the walls. Decide how much you are going to inset the roof, mark the walls and decorate the inside above that mark.
2. Glue on the doors and window trim EXCEPT the door on the left front. You can glue on the trim once the building is glued together, but I find it is easiest while it is flat. If you want, you can glue a piece of the vellum between the walls of the building and the doors that you glue on. Otherwise, you will attach the vellum to the inside of the building later. The façade doors and back doors look very similar. The wider doors are on the back.
I decided to make my window trim two tone to mirror how the real building is painted.
3. Glue the front windowpanes into the large windows on the inside of the building. The panes on the bottom are slightly smaller than the panes in the middle and the top.
4. If you are going to use the window sashes, glue them onto the back of the pieces now. You may want to cut out various lower sashes so that it looks like a few of the windows are open. If you have trouble aligning the larger pieces you can cut them into separate windows or rows of windows before gluing them on.
4. Glue the vellum in place if you are using EXCEPT the piece that will go behind the front left door.
In some areas there is paned glass. Import the yellow-colored vellum SVG pieces into Cricut Design Space and change the lines from cut to draw, then attach to their objects. Use the Cricut Extra Fine point pen. I provide the paned glass velum in the pre-cut kit.
5. Glue the body together.
6. Check the fit of the roof piece, adjusting any of the fold lines as necessary. You may need to trim the corners. Glue in the roof piece, setting it down below the top of the walls. I placed mine about 1/4″ below the height of the walls. I found it easiest to stack together some scrap cardboard to the depth I wanted and rest the roof piece on it upside down until the glue dried.
Construct The Façade
7. Fold the front façade along the fold lines with all folds towards the back or inside (mountain folds), except the doors, which fold outwards. Glue the paned vellum between the front of the façade and the additional doors. Glue the additional doors to the INSIDE of the façade doors.
8. Turn the façade over and fold together the columns. Glue, making sure the columns are square.
9. Fold the smallest cross piece, testing it in place and trimming or adjusting the folds as necessary so it fits snuggly but does not push the columns out of square. Glue in place. This becomes the roof over the door.
10. Fold the medium cross piece, testing it in place and trimming or adjusting the folds as necessary so it fits snuggly but does not push the columns out of square. Glue in place. This becomes the roof over the windows.
11. Fold the largest cross piece, testing it in place and trimming or adjusting the folds as necessary so it fits snuggly but does not push the columns out of square. Glue in place. This becomes the top of the façade.
12. Glue the facade onto the front of the building.
13. Glue the door frame and door to the left of the façade onto the front, placing the right edge of the door frame next to the façade. Glue the vellum either between the door and the building, or inside the building.
There is a little rectangle that can go above the door. You can add an address number to it in Design Space. I added the number using gold metallic pen.
14. Check the fit of the bottom insert piece, adjusting any of the fold lines as necessary. You may need to trim the corners. Glue the bottom insert in place.
15. Glue on each of the flat top trim pieces, flush to the top walls of the building, and with the score lines at the bottom. Glue on the side pieces first, then the pieces to the front and back. Depending on the material you used to make the building, you may need to trim the pieces to fit. Glue the spiked trim pieces on top of the flat pieces.
16. Either use the signs as designed or attach new graphics or words to the signs. I include extra blank signs in the pre-cut kit. If using the flag sign, color in with marking pens. Glue the signs in place. If you are going to use the building as a stand-alone, glue the Deliveries sign above the back doors. Or it might be cute instead to make a beer garden in the back yard!
This piece can be finished with any method you are used to. Don’t worry about it being perfect. Just have fun and enjoy the process!
Enjoy making your Old Ale House!! I would love to see your finished buildings. Please share a photo with me by emailing me at Jackie@acottageintheforest.com.
Examples for Inspiration
Kraftboard Old Ale House by Jackie Smith