Very very very fine house

Over a cup of mocha the other day, I sketched the plan of my protagonist's house, based loosely on Figure 22 of John Ward's Roman Era in Britain. He grew up there, and lives there still with his wife and father; the shape of the house, I reasoned, would shape the man. But a moderately crappy pencil sketch didn't help much. I decided I had too many spare hours cluttering up my life, so I downloaded Google Sketchup in order to create a 3D version. Which, over the course of a wince-worthy amount of time, I did:

I would not classify it as "time well spent", but, apart from learning to use Sketchup, I did find that it clarified a lot of things about my protagonist. I know there's a nook under the stairs where he might have fooled around with a girl or two. I know the spire on the dome casts a shadow on the rooftop outside his father's (now his) bedroom window every morning, and watching that natural sundial might have influenced his decision to become a clockmaker. I know which door he will leave by to make his midnight rendezvous, and what he will stare at while waiting for the hour to arrive.

adfamiliares makes fun of me, asking if I've designed the carpets yet. (That's a Tolkien jab. There are worse jabs.) But it was a worthwhile project—or would have been, at about 1/4 the time investment. Getting a chance to walk through Scrutiny's house as he would filled my head with images; I am brimfull of details.

Now I must purge the demon from my hard drive, before I start modeling my entire neighborhood.

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