Dollar Store Foam House....NO HOTWIRE! 

FAQ No windows??? Correct. I intentionally made this house without windows. It was to prove a point that I never ended up actually touching on during the video as it became too long of a tangent. Essentially I left the windows out to prove that you can save some time and effort by excluding certain details because these are not historically accurate models, they are game aids. Especially with games like D&D where you are using your imagination to truly craft the world, and in this way the windows exist on any side of the building you are not currently looking at. I know, a bit of a strange concept and one that's hard to express well which is why it didn't make the video. Why not use coffee stir sticks for the timbers? Coffee stir sticks are a great budget crafting material. They can be found for free or cheap. The problem is that, ironically, real wood doesn't look much like wood when building miniatures. Foam with the wire brush wood grain looks more like wood after paint. You can get the wood grain effect into coffee sticks/popsicle sticks, as well as the chamfered edges, but it takes a lot of effort and is best done with a Dremel/rotary tool which is a somewhat expensive and special tool. This would not be in line with the theme of this project.

No idea why youtube wanted me here. I had no desire in my life to build a miniature house. But now, now I do.

This is the kind of tutorial that brings new crafters to the community!

A glass jam jar makes a perfectly good rolling pin.

I made it, but it didn't taste right. No flavor at all and very dry.

A lovely little model - and I see some comments about there not being windows. Some mediaeval buildings didn't have windows - they let heat out and cold in. As long as there was a flue or a hole in the roof to let smoke out, windows were a luxury. And having a smoky environment killed fleas, mites, and bedbugs. Another bonus. Of course, it might not be a house, but a storage building in a castle's outer bailey, perhaps, where no windows would be good for defence, and a deterrent to thieves. It doesn't strike me as unusual at all. Living in the UK, where there are literally thousands of buildings of the mediaeval period still standing, and lived in, and loved, it seems perfectly normal. We have lots of fortified farmhouses, with towers and defences, especially on the Scottish and Welsh borders. Some are like tiny fortresses. I love your buildings. Nice one.

As someone who builds RC planes with foam core You can use sandpaper to make it thinner, works really well

"Chipboard can be found at the back of most notepads" *Is now cannibalizing every notepad I own for more chipboard*

Well, whaddaya know, youtube recommendations actually spat out something good for once. Subbed. Now all I need is room to store literally any terrain at all...

Hey man, I read your post from a couple weeks ago about mental health and your experience with it. You seem plenty happy in this video, but in case you're not, chin up brother. Hope you're doing well. Thank you for the video.

I'm not sure what I love the most about your videos: the fact that everything you buy is from Walmart, Home Depot, Dollarama, and Dollar Tree, the fact that all the prices you list are in CAD, or the fact you're clearly Canadian. I'm taking a crack at your longboat from episode #8 for my first build and man oh man, do I feel the "I wish I had a hot wire table" when it comes to the cuts, but honestly, I feel so rewarded having done this meticulously by hand. Thank you for your videos man!

Also like to point out (I may have missed it if you mentioned already) that for anyone who doesn't have Mod Podge (as it can get pricey depending on where you are, or if you are just in a rush/pinch and don't have any around you), you can also use a permanent PVA glue (Elmer's Glue-All is a good option if you have it on-hand) and water (about 3 parts glue to 1 part water) as a Mod Podge stand-in (I believe, though not tried it myself, you can use PVA wood glue as well to get a quicker set and one that is more weather resistant). When in doubt: Improvise! That's fun of scratch-building. Trying new things and seeing what does and doesn't work!

This build fits me to a tee. I live in a small home with limited space and a hotwire table isn't a practical option for me to purchase nor is storing sheets of foam insulation. Plus I don't really need more than tiles for game play however some family and friends have been seeing some of my projects that I've shared on Facebook and wanted to know if I could make them Christmas Village type buildings for the holidays. Been toying with the idea for trying foamcore which you've just settled. I thank you sir and my family will in a couple of months. Wow I got a jump on my Christmas gift ideas and it's not even June!!!👍👍👍

This is so cool!!!! The urge to fill my house with tiny dnd buildings is great.

Vacuum Cleaner! special tool alert! , I kid, love the vid

I love that you cleaned your workspace, fresh workspace!!

Have I ever told you… you ARE my spirit animal Thank you for your advice. This hobby has renewed my interest in hobbys

With the cutting the foamcore in half, it's something I've had to do a lot recently, and there's better ways to do it than just trying to do a long slice across the entire piece. I'm a pastry cook by trade, and the same principle applies to cutting foam in half as it does to cutting a cake in half. The short version is cut the entire way around the piece first, and then work your way into the middle. In woodworking terms, establish a kerf around the entire thing, doing a shallow cut to begin with, and then use that established kerf to keep your knife runnign true. Also, don't hold it up on edge, keep it flat side down, it'll go a lot easier on you. Probably means you need to move the piece right to the side of your table, and lean down to get your eye level with the knife. Rule of thumb with this method is you really need your knife to be 1/4 again as long as the piece is across. As always, shallow, repetitive slices, not trying to push through the entire thing. Let the knife do the work.

"I don't have a rolling pin" Use the side of a glass bottle. Or a pint glass. Or anything else nice and rigid, hard, and round. Anyway, LOVE this build, very nice work and fun to watch. I do not have a hot wire cutter, so this is more the way I am building things. Plus, foam core from the dollar store is just a great price. I'm all about the reuse old stuff or things that are cheap for my builds.

This is exactly how I build my dioramas. I'm slow but thats ok. It's about the creativity for me not the time. Thank you for sharing. Anything is possible with some imagination.

Just finished my first ever build! Used this video as a guide! I have been using the mold/plaster method a couple yrs ago but soon got tired of it Using foam for my house and game tiles is so much more rewarding! Thanks so much BMC! C

1:50 in and I've never subbed to a channel quicker. I don't know how you ended up in my recommended vids my good man, but I'm glad you did.

Truly awesome build. The house looks great and fits right in on that impressive shelf of yours. Great video Jeremy!

Having an organized, dedicated workspace is a huge advantage

Every time I watch you I am renewed with motivation to continue crafting. Key up the awesome videos.

I've loved dollhouses and miniatures my whole life, and been watching people build them on RU-vid for a long time. This is the first tutorial I've seen that I felt like I actually could do. Now I'm off to see what else you've made...after hitting the subscribe button!

Cool to see another shaky crafter doing so many cool stuff! My tremor has gotten a bit worse lately and doing precision work has gotten harder, so it's good to see someone making it work :)

Nice seeing you go back to your crafting roots, Pillipow.

I liked this build, not only because you used readily available material, but because it showed that with skill, and yours is considerable, you can make things look a £1000, rather than just a $1. Fab house too, thanks for making it.

I hope to see more easy builds like this (but a mix with the more detailed ones obviously). Fantastic show, watched every episode

Black magic craft I love that you did a video to prove it can be done. I don't have a hot wire table. I admit it does make the process slower. I use a knife to make my cuts it works well. I've made a couple things that you've posted. A house and the tower ruin it can all be done and come out great. Keep up the awesomeness

Houuuu ! that might be the project that make me go back to minis !!! We didn't had such nice video when i was young. Really happy I found BMC !

I love every single thing about this. Finally a good RU-vid recommendation. Subscribed.

This is such a fantastic video, I've been searching for a new hobby for some time now and after watching this I think I've struck gold!

What really hit me hard was hearing It doesn't matter how fast or slow you build As someone who can go from wanting to do nothing but sculpt,to almost wanting to break what I've done,this was nice to hear

thank you. i have never made a tiny building and I was not sure how the process worked. Your video was well done and helped take the mystery out of how the building process works. I think I might feel confident enough to try this. Thank you again.

Love the build and the simplicity of the materials used. Now off to the dollar store!!

Great vid man. This should settle the debate. You can make terrain with anything and as cheap as possible. Looks fantastic.

These are great, I have built 4 buildings based on you and the other channels for my wifes Christmas and Halloween village. This is way more fun and much less expensive then buying the village buildings. Thanks.

For thin boards, I use cheap foam picnic plates. I use these for stones, bricks, shingles and boards. They texture very well. I sand both sides for good paint and glue adhesion. This is very flexible. I use a hot glue gun (no glue) to dab at the stones for texturing. When I cut boards out of these, I use a steel ruler but I tilt my blade side to side as I cut. This makes a nice uneven edge, but with width control. Michael

Just started crafting and only have room and tools to use foam board and knives (x-acto and box cutters, etc.) So this was super cool. Thanks for the video!

Another great one. Thanks for the video. Build looks awesome, going to have to try that.

Tin foil to make the texture! :O ! That is DEF creative, and cheap, and I'm for it...For ALL of this!

Thanks for this video! I'm pretty sure I learned more new tricks from this than any other single video I've found yet.

This is what I subscribed for! Great video.

7:15 switching out the rocks for metal is a good idea for cleanup too. just run a magnet over your surface. done.

I was looking up plaster molds earlier today (HirstArts, they have super neat molds that produce parts to make basic dungeon tiles to full on ruins), and I was hemming and hawing over the start-up cost of getting all the molds I'd need to make some varied scenery... Holy moly, I have the urge to make an entire village worth of houses now after watching your video, and it'd cost me less than to order one of those molds! Subbed to your channel, and now I'm off to view your previous uploads, haha!

This new rotating table gives an awesome 360 look!

Who needs a hot wire table??? I use a 9v battery guitar string and a cheese cutter... In the front yard....

Interesting idea with the rolling pin. I also use some kitchen tools like the meat tenderizer hammer to whack the foam to add texture instead of the tin foil ball

I don't have an x-acto knife or cutting mat or foam. How do I do build this? Seriously? "before people complain about not having a rolling pin and it's special tool...." BMC You are 100% responsible for my interest in RPG board games. I grew up in the 80's and knew about the stigma of D&D. Thank you for opening my eyes. BTW. I already had a proxon foam cutter table before I found this channel, now I have a new reason to use it.

Corrugated cardboard rocks my world 😊 Foam core? More foam than core... 😁 To each his/her own.

kool , thanx...very nice , scale model genius...And re-purposed materials...looks great

Finally i found Arts and crafts for dudes, im home now, and it feels great. :)

It's great you demonstrated the "low" tech method on crafting. Thumbs up!

i've been dming for about six or seven months with the 5th edition character sheets and my imagination, and i've been slowly adding new elements to make it seem less amateur. last time i drew a dyson-style arena map that greatly impressed my players, and i'm really excited to bust out a full model the next time we meet up. this makes me so much more confident that i can make something look great without investing a lot of money.

BEAUTIFUL build buddy!!!!!!! I felt sorry for you doing the detail work. There is a plane in hell thats just brick work LOL:)!!! Again AMAING results XD!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for this inspiration. I like the house. The single shingles look even better to me than foam stripe shingles, even though you cant do a wooden structure on the card board. Unmfortunately I cannot get foam in €uroshops in germany. But it isnt that expensive in hobbyist shops. So I could build this house for like 2€ material costs.

I made several buildings like this a few weeks ago. For the shingles I bailed on the individual cut out idea because it was taking so long. I went on google and found a picture of shingles and made a quick templet to print out. When I glues it on it was painfully paper looking. So I blackwashed strategic areas and it braught it to the next level. Food for thought.

Thanks for all your content! Als, I like your tattoos. Great work, man!

I already have a massive crush on this handsome dude

And with métal we can use a magnet to separate the bricks from métal bits

The paint job at the end was amazing!

Great video, I used to make houses out of cardboard and card stock and plain paper all the time. Even made all the furniture for them and used toilet paper for curtains and paper towels for fabric. You really don’t need a lot of fancy tools just a good sharp xacto knife and some good scissors, you can even use tooth paste to fill in gaps if you don’t have joint compound. We used to make a base coat out of flour and water and then paint on top of that. That was in the old school project days. If you limit your creativity to the tools you have available you can sometimes hinder your ability. Don’t be afraid to experiment with just the bits and odds and ends that you have laying around. You can do all kinds of things with pasta and spaghetti and broom bristles, whatever you have, go out in your yard and collect bits of sticks and branches, rocks and dried up leaves. I always found that I could make plenty of great things out of the trash, and could have just as good of a result as if I had expensive materials.

Just before the paint went on, something felt wrong about the house. . . and then I realized it didn't have any windows D: Very cool build regardless, I don't personally craft, but I find even watching any builds, especially the painting sections, helps me with my art!

Love how it turned out, have you thought to build any semi-ruined buildings for frostgrave yet? You do great work, I am always impressed!

I want to say you have been inspiration on me I'm not really creative myself I follow directions very good so I appreciate the info on your video

Commenting for algorithm. Thank you for all that you do man.

Hey can you please make a tutorial for this without using a hot glue gun? Or one of these fancy knives? I also don't have access to cardboard. On second thought, could you just show me how to minecraft-punch these models out of belly button lint and spare pieces of string? Ty!

IM GOING TO DO THIS NOW!! This is amazing! What do you think about doing a skyrim style blacksmiths forge or some sort of odds and ends shop where the players can spend their golds??

I've been on the edge of buying materials to make my first build and seeing you do this with the supplies that I know I can get just down the road definitely gave me inspiration. Thank you

Hey just wanted you to know, I started building because of you and I used this exact video to do my 1st build. I think you're an inspiration to the craft. You make more people join and that's awesome. Thank you.

Psht, bet you pulled some Hollywood stuff and just "showed" us on camera you used nothing. We know you actually used your specialty tools!! 😂😂😋 Had to, man. Love your videos and learned some stuff I didn't think of previously! Love the fact that you done this video to show others you don't need to spend a ton of money just to make something look beautiful.

Alright dude, you did it. I'm currently building a very similar house by following your steps and boy does it make fun. I'm already some hours in and will start working on the roof next. I've never done this before and I have no clue what to do with the result. But fu** it, I already love building it. Thank you for sharing your skills with us and inspiring me to try out this awesome hobby.

Jeremy, fantastic tutorial and very inspiring for the newcomers! Great job as usual!

Absolutely blows me away. Awesome. I'm like, I could actually do this!

Yeah my very first build thanks to you BMC

If somebody doesn't have a rolling pin, surely they have a can of something that they could use as a roller. LOL😁 Awesome build! Thank you for great advice and inspiration! Love your videos!

Been considering starting this hobby. I'm naturally artsy and I was a bit intimidated being limited on space and fancy tools. This video has encouraged and enlightened me. I'm 51 and have mobility issues. I feel like I need a stimulating hobby to keep my brain and hands busy. I think I've found it! Thanks from a fellow Canuck!

Rolling pin... wine bottle, beer bottle, can, bottle.... etc...etc... LOL. Thank you for this, I've been considering making our items for our D&D game, just funds are not always great. But we get a lot of shipments in at work and this gives me a ton of ideas for using the material at work that we toss.

Very nice! Ok, it might "only" be a house and not a full scenery with vegetation, water and stuff, but this is the first build I've watched where I - as a complete beginner - feel I could probably make one myself with my non-existing skills and lack of proper tools.

Woohoo! This is my level of build!! I love that you go back and forth from proxon build to xacto!! Ones like today, I can go and jump into. The hotwire ones make me get more creative on how to approach them. Thanks for keeping both levels of builders in mind. ♥️👍

I love the cleanup cut

So I am new to this craft but have been playing since 1979, and just watched through your videos. Came up with my own dollar store build. Thanks for inspiration.

THANK YOU! You just got me past a ridiculously slow process of framing, as opposed to using cardboard the way you did. :-) Also, with just a little care, you don't even need to buy a cheap rolling pin; any clean bottle, jar, or soup can with flat sides works just fine.

My rolling pin is a gift from my mother and one of the first things I received when I moved out. She collected nice ones from second hand stores. Absolutely necessary in the kitchen... Or workshop! 😊

I knew you were Canadian just from the great vibe! thanks so much for the vid

I recently started playing D&D again, and ooooh boy do I want to start building after watching your videos. I will be purchasing many things from your website come Christmas time. Thanks!!!

Thank you so much for thinking about us on a budget, BMC! :D

Thank you so much for this! I can't wait to create my father's childhood home for Father's Day using these techniques!! :D

Love your setup and I really liked that you told us to not worry about time, I know stuff like that discourages people when they start crafting. Got yourself a new subscriber

These videos are always super helpful. Thanks for sharing them!

O.K., I’ve watched a few of your videos, but this one really impressed me. One is only limited by their imagination. I love that you go the extra inch to create the realism. Chamfering the timbers, texturing the walls, all make such a difference. When you were talking about making the foam core thinner for the timbers, I was thinking about pounding on it with a flat meat tenderizer, but the rolling pin worked beautifully. Thanks for the videos!

I’ve just started building, and I’ve been using nothing but dollar store stuff. So far the biggest life savers are; popsicle sticks and toothpicks. It’s really easy to add woodgrain to the popsicle sticks, and toothpick pieces make great cheap supports! Plus toothpick edges are great for making cartoony wood grain to foam

Fantastic! Best building tutorial I've seen in a very long time. Job well done.

I don't know how or why RU-vid finally has there act together and showing me individuals that offer some substance and effort but I'm glad. This will be enjoyable

That came out looking great!

Love your craft videos. Keep them coming please

Thank you fellow Canadian!

Total Awesomeness