I finished my first Gingerbread House today . . . it took forever!!! I was so surprised at how much time it took to get everything together!
I made this one for my aunt who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year . . . both my great-aunt (her mom) and my gramma died last year during Christmas so I wanted to start this year off on the right note. It was really a treat to do since my mom came over and worked on a second house with me for a few hours . . . we are going to definitely have to make this a tradition.
I learned a few things by the time I got around to baking the second house:
1) Roll our your dough and cut the shapes on tin foil. This way when you move the pieces to the cookie sheets the shape won't become distorted.
2) Freeze the cookie sheets before baking, even if your dough was still cold from the freezer. The second house I assembled was much easier because the pieces didn't require as much shaving.
3) I added more spices than the recipe required . . simply so that the gingerbread would still have a really strong fragrance that will last longer.
4) Everything is going to take twice as long and require twice as much candy as you plan.
Here are a few pics of the finished house and the one we are still working on . . .
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Your houses are beautiful!! I imagine they took a long time to make. You did a great job!

WOW! They are beautiful!

Thanks for the advice. I'm goign to try one this year for the first time and need all the help I can get!

I posted to your picture! They are gorgeous houses!

One thing that I do that helps when baking is as soon as the gingerbread comes out of the oven, place the template on it one more time and re-trim. If you do it when the gingerbread is still warm, it cuts cleanly and you don't have to "shave" it to trim.

If you also cut a small hole in the board you are setting it on, and place a small string of Christmas lights in there (can be battery or electric) when you turn them on, it helps release the wonderful smell of the gingerbread!

I love baking gingerbread houses!!

How long would one like that take to do? I wanted to try one this year but don't have the time. I'm thinking of doing it after Christmas. It'll be late, but at least I won't have to wait a whole year to do one.

I simply roll out my gingerbread dough directly on the greased cookie sheet, trim my shapes, and lift away the excess (which can be rolled again and used for other pieces). That's much easier than trying to lift large cutouts.

Quad's suggestion is exactly what I do to make sure all my pieces are nice and even and ready for construction.

Praetorean--it's best to bake and assemble one day, and decorate on a different day. That gives the royal icing enough time to dry and hold the house together securely. And the decorating is fun! After doing hundreds of them in my lifetime I can whip one out in about a half an hour. But when I'm doing it for myself, with my daughter, with friends, we easily take hours to decorate. Of course, the spiked eggnog might have something to do with that...

Katie--GORGEOUS houses! I can't believe that was your first attempt! Your family will flip over them.

I don't think anything says "Holidays" like a gingerbread house!!

Great job!!!

Praetorian . . . the first one took me about 3 hours to cut and bake all of the pieces, then another 2 hours to get it fully assembled. (I gave it time between pieces to set up before I added the next one.) I decorated the next day and it took me almost 5 hours to finish. Luckily, the second house is going much quicker since I have more of an idea on how to do things . . . assembly took about an hour . . . decorating is still going slow but now I can help my mom work on it so it will speed up. We are thinking about making a few during the summer to sell at a local craft fair next fall . . .

Thanks everyone for the kind words . . . I think I'm much better at gingerbread houses than cakes!

Wow those are awsome I will try one when my mom and sister come and visit this weekend.

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Just wanted to edit this and add the second house . . . finally finished it! This one is going to be for my Gramma for her Christmas gift.

I love these! They look like they have Christmas lights all over them!

very pretty..my mom and i were just talking today about doing a GB house and i have never done one...guess ill have to give it a wirll

KatieTaylor77, I hope you'll enter both GB houses in the Wilton contest - they're both beautiful!!

You did a wonderful job! One day I'm going to tackle a job like this.

that looks awesome! i love gingerbread cookies! BEAUTIFUL JOB

Wilton's holding a gingerbread contest, you just need to email a picture. top prize is a trip for 4 to Disneyworld in Orlando. you should enter your gingerbread house...Kady