HO-scale General Store

I'm working on a model of this general store, which is my home/office:



The store used to be an Esso station, and the signpost out front is identical to Lego's. The pumps are very similar also, although mine had one centered light, and Lego's has two. Wanting to use these elements is why I chose HO scale.

I've done a draft of the build in Stud.io:



Lego's 33° slopes were too shallow and 45° were too steep. Cheese slopes would work on this roof, but I coudn't think of a nice way of doing the corners. It's a really complex roof with a lot of slopes. As far as appearance, I want it to have a 1960's look, but I don't mind using fancy new parts behind the scenes.

There are a few things bothering me that I'd like to get feedback about.

1) I'd prefer the attic windows were one stud wide.
2) The shop is too wide. It should be about the same width as the middle section of the house.
3) I'd prefer the roofs came to a point one stud wide.
4) The ridge of the shop's roof is too high.

All of this could be fixed if I made the shop a stud narrower and the middle section of the house a stud wider. To make the first floor work, I could make each of the small windows on the sides of the doors overlap by half a stud. That would take some very un-1960s techniques, but I think it could be done discretely. There will be a porch floor, not modeled in the draft, so there would be room to work underneath the doors and windows.

The biggest problem is the sign. I really like doing it in those blue 1960's blocks, but it’s already a bit of a mess getting it in there below the windows. I moved the windows up a plate higher than they really should be and I recessed the sign into the roof by one plate, rather than having it sit on top of the roof.

The sign is 8 studs wide and the roof would be 13 studs wide. I could change the sign to say ‘STOUFFERS’. There are two things I don't like about that: the sign is getting really big, proportional to the roof, and the lack of an apostrophe really bugs me. Can anybody think of a clever way to insert an apostrophe?

The other options would be to center the sign with jumpers. Using jumper plates, I can't think of a way to keep the sign recessed, without creating small gaps on each side. Is there anything a half stud wide that could fill that gap?

Plate with rail: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=32028#T=C

Thanks, I'll play around with that.

Have a modern day pic of your house you can post up? I like seeing then-and-now pics.

Sure.

If you don’t mind slightly custom stuff you could have a brick printed or engraved with exactly how you want it, with an apostrophe