The Faux Door Does Look Better

The partially open door has been added, and I do feel that it improves the overall feel of the vignette; that wide open doorway, on the "street" side of the vignette, just didn't look right to me. It would have been fine for the back garden, which would be private, but not for the front entry.

With the addition of some "furnishings" visible through the open doorway, the impression will be, I hope, that the people in the house have just opened the door to let some air in. Somewhere in my stash of  mini stuff I have some Japanese swords and a samurai helmet on a rack, I'll have to see if those would work on the left-hand wall, as a sort of  tokonoma niche effect. And some geta sandals on the step would also look effective, I think.

The next part of this project is a major one, the construction and placement of the massive, street-side gate to the house. It involves dowels, boards, thatch, plastering, a barred window, and if I can figure out how to do it nicely, a lit lantern. The lantern will probably have to be made from scratch by me....

Once the gate is situated, I can "build" the fences and/or garden walls on the two sides, although they will, like the gatehouse, all have to be removable until the landscaping of the courtyard is finished.

The door was cut of mat board, painted to look like the same cherry finish as the walls, and then framed out with cherry-stained,  wooden strips. In order for the door to sit behind the wall, I had to cut off the board trim at the edge where the door would contact the door frame. The windows were made of cross-halved strips of 1/8" (approx. 3.5 mm) square wood, with the same translucent paper behind the panes as is in the transom window over the door. The door is half the width of the open doorway, plus a small amount for the overlap that would exist if there was another door to meet it.

All in all, I am pleased with the look now.