Here I go again

Anyone trying to follow this build will be giddy with the amount of twists and turns there has been since I got the kit last November.  Firstly it was going to Naples with me for the winter then our stay got shortened and it wasn't worth doing that, so then it became my Summer 2014 project (I do a 1/12th each summer in the UK).  I got home a couple of weeks ago and have dithered around with the Gate House ever since.

Today I have just bought a large 1/12th from EBay, so...........guess what.........the Gate House has become my winter-in-Florida build (again) for later this year.  The theory being it gives me something mini to go at during those six months and, at this size, stuff is easily transportable each way with a final destination being the UK in a couple of year's time when we give up on our peripatetic lifestyle.

Meanwhile I took two walls to the show at the NEC and left them with the wonderful Malcolm of Malcolm's Miniatures.  He is going to make me three internal doors (that open!)  Please click on his name and look at his website - he does the most fantastic stuff.  If nothing else go and look at his doors - seriously - they are worth a visit in themselves.

This is my colour scheme of 'greenery-yallery' (with the odd pop of red maybe) in keeping with the Arts and Crafts furniture my two little people are collecting for their home.

Where do I begin?

I am writing this as a sort of appeal for help....

I just don't know where to start.

The Gatehouse is pretty much two buildings joined together:

On the right is a two-storey plus attic space cottage and on the left is the gate with two rooms above.  I am thinking I might treat them as two buildings initially and I have opted to start on the cottage.  That's about the only decision I can come up with.  

Here's a picture of the shell as it is right now, fastened with an elastic band, in hopes it helps you understand my problems and where to start.

If I just do the build as it is, I just don't see how I get in there to decorate.  So it seems sensible to decorate the walls and floors before building.  If I decorate and then build I still have to manoeuvre all the household goods in place - but I suppose that might be doable?

But I still have a problem with that plan - I can't put floors down because I want to put in lights.  I can't buy them and haven't made them and don't really know what I want where until I furnish.  I also have to have the exit holes through the walls for the wires sorted before I build as drilling little holes might be an issue once it is three-dimensional.  Theoretically I want all the wires to exit the wall on the left and run down the chimney between the two buildings.  For example I have a kitchen on the ground floor with all kinds of grandiose ideas of lighting all over the place, none of which can be marked up until the furniture is in place.

I seem to be at some sort of impasse.

Right now, and increasingly as I am typing this, I am inclined to do the work in this order:

• crack on with making all the cottage furniture I have and standing it in place and marking up for lights
• make the lights (wish I could buy them)
• decorate walls
• thread lights in place
• add floors
• then assemble and glue cottage together
• add coving and skirting board and doors (should this be done before building?)

Can anyone see a better way or, even more importantly, can you see a fatal flaw in this idea?