Houses? houses? We don't need no stinking houses!
gimme30;
Most scratchbuilt structures are built from scaled-down prototype plans, which have the design, and dimensions, included. I've also worked solely from photos, in some cases. Even then though, I had the design right in the photo, and the dimensions could be "guesstimated" pretty accurately from people, or objects, shown in the photo. Both my tiny Black River station and the large Seattle Union Station scratch-builds were done using photos, rather than scale plans.
I don't understand how dollhouses could be used on an N-scale, or HO-scale, layout. Dollhouses are typically 1/12th scale or 1/24th scale models. N-scale is 1/160th scale, and HO-scale is 1/87th scale. I would think that a dollhouse would be far too big for either.
There is so much stuff available in N-scale that no one could afford to buy even one of every item. That said, there is even more available in HO-scale, since it's #1 in popularity, instead of #2. (N-scale) This probably means more house kits too. I've also seen some "N-scale" factory and warehouse kits from Pola that were really HO-scale kits, complete with HO-scale bricks, doorways, and window openings. They were supposedly "N-scale" because they came with fill-in adapters with (sort-of) "N-scale" doors and windows. This was the manufacturer's way to sell the same kit, cast from the same molds, in two different scales.
As for: "What do I use for houses on my own layout?" Well, not much. My layout is a two-level bookshelf design only 16" deep in most places. There are certain prototype scenes that I wanted to (loosely) represent, and amazingly enough, all of them are right next to the railroad tracks!
Since people don't normally build the home where they plan to sleep nights, right next to a railroad track, there are very few model houses on my layout. I do have all five of the "Painted Ladies" (kits), the mansion (kit) shown in one of my photos, I also have N-scale kits for a hotel that was right across the street from Seattle Union Station, some "Downtown Seattle" vintage brick commercial buildings, a restaurant(kit), a firehouse(kit), a gas station,(kit) two tenement-type apartment buildings, (kits) and several rail-served small industries(scratch), also the lighthouse keeper's stone cottage (Both the lighthouse, and the cottage, are two of my many scratch-builds.) Then there are retail stores (kits) Four railroad stations: one large, (my centerpiece scratchbuilt model of Union Station) one medium, Cedar Falls Station ( a laser-cut wood kit) one structure flat (scratchbuilt King St. Station.) and one tiny, Black River train order station. (scratch)
A water tower (scratch), two interlocking towers,(kits) several bridges, including a kitbash of the huge Salmon Bay Drawbridge, a scratchbuilt covered bridge, three deck-girder bridges (kits) , a long wooden truss bridge (scratch) and a large steel trestle. (kit bashed) There is also a see-through Railway Express building flat, and an ice house (kit) to serve express refer cars. That's quite enough structures for a medium size shelf layout!
Only a handful are residential, but for modeling the area "down by the tracks", they shouldn't be.
Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos: