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A time-component challenge. I started the scale model of the house when the builders were preparing the basement of the real house, in march 2005. Aim: Finish the scale model before the house is built. Success: The scale model was finished in december 2005, about one month before the house. Below, some pictures show different steps of the construction.

The scale model required about 2000 to 3000 matchsticks and was built at the scale 1/50, from the maps of the house.

The sole advice I got to start this activity was given by my uncle who also made some scale models with matchsticks. It was the following : "Always cross the matchsticks". I made the walls following this rule as a bricklayer would do. Some details about the construction of the walls:
  * Cross of the matchsticks for the walls and at the corners (work like a bricklayer).
  * Start directly on the final support.
  * One thickness of matchsticks is enough.
  * No paper, no cardboard.

Inside, a kind of partition is simulated with cardboard, mainly to avoid too much light inside and to separate windows of different rooms.

Let us describe the built of the roof in four steps:
  * A first set of matchsticks contributing to the roofing gives their exact location.
  * The roof structure is built thanks to the matchsticks of the previous step.
  * The roofing is built on the roof structure.
  * Finally, the chimney is the ending point of the work.