Saturday, August 12, 2017

Making Furniture

Well this morning I knew I couldn't do anything really big because the husband had a work thing that involved the city library van which meant I needed to pick him up and take him back to his car.  So doing anything that couldn't stand interruption was right out.

So I made some more furniture and redid the wheels on my barn door. 

It occurred to me that I needed a cabinet to keep pillows in so I nuked a hutch cabinet and removed the shelves from the top.  I didn't like the brass hardware so I replaced it with bronze and added some casters to the bottom.  I painted it with the same paint as the bathroom walls and then sanded the edges so it'll look a little worn out.

The idea is that all the furniture in the loft can be moved around except the murphy bed which'll fold up.


The next project started up because it occurred to me that our resident had no where to hang clothing.  Of course now I'll need to make some clothing and hangers.

But I started with the moving closet.  I took legs from a couple of House of Miniature candle stand kits and some pieces of wood.  I used my dremel sanding head to add some curves and stained everything with cherry stain.  Some brass pipe lengths and nails to make the rails and finish the ends and I had a clothing rack.  I added casters to the bottom so it could be pushed out of the way when necessary.


  
Now I'll be looking up tutorials on how to make mini clothing on hangers but at least I have something to hang them on.

The wheels for my barn door had gotten loose and so the door was hanging oddly.  Makin some thicker wheel braces and using toothpicks for the nails and axle seems to have done the trick.


It's a little weird in the picture, I wonder if I hung it wobbly.

The only other thing I did was paint the bathroom fittings I ordered from Shapeways.  I painted them the same way I had the shower and sink fixtures, with some metallic bronze.


I may add a bit more of the black to give the hangers some definition but I'm not sure yet. 

But that's been my Saturday so far. 

Here's a couple of shots of the loft.

One with the murphy bed up:


And one with it down:



I think since I've pretty much got the layout down I'll end up taking the house apart tomorrow so I can rout out the wire paths and start finishing the interior.  I'm not looking forward to this.  I'm still trying to figure out how to hide the wiring when I'm not using wallpaper.

Oh well.  Have to bite the bullet sometime.  Hope everyone else is having a good weekend!

12 comments:

  1. Love what you did to the hutch! Looks really cute! The hanging rack is great, too! You're getting good with that Dremel! :O)
    I wonder if you could hide the wires something like Brae did for Baslow Ranch? That would be in keeping with the Craftsman style. Something to think about... Good luck! I know you'll come up with a great solution!

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    1. Thanks! Practice makes perfect. I might add another layer of stain to the hanging rack.

      I'll have to take a look and see. I'm thinking of routing out the channels as needed and painting around them, then using wood putty and tape to fill in around the wires if I can't hide them any other way.

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  2. Use sparkle to fill in the channels before you paint. Just be sure to get them deep enough so that you don't accidentally sand wires.

    The chest and the hanging rack look great!

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    1. I need to have the wires in then before I paint, and I won't be able to put the lights in some of the places before I put the house back together... I agree, deep enough to not sand the wires.

      Thanks! I'm pretty pleased with how they look.

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  3. Hi Sheila! Everything is looking great! I Love the rolling barn door.... we had the RL thing on our RL Barn an age ago! LOL! The only thing I would add to the realism is a touch of rust and the rolling surface more silver where it "wears" from rolling!
    As for the hiding wires issue, in my Lovely Old Dollhouse (the big one from my childhood) I retrofitted electric lights into it by carving the wire channels into the wood, gluing the wires into the channel and then patching over the channel with wood putty sanded smooth. There is no room for "wigggling" or adjusting with this method, but it does hide the wires! You need to have the holes where the wires pass through the floors line up with the channel in the wall in order to hide that part too. It can be a bit fiddly with having the fixtures in place when you still need to sand and paint.... emery boards make good sanding tools! I did all the wiring in the Lovely Old Dollhouse without taking the building apart, so it is doable! Good luck, I am sure you will make it look wonderful!

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    1. Thanks! I'll have to mess with the wheels and track to age them a bit.

      I've always cheated a bit and had wood beam channels to hide the wires in my other houses. This still doesn't really allow for it but I do have furniture to hide things behind so hopefully it'll work out.

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  4. The hanging rack is great. I read somewhere that actually cloth hangers were originally made of a special moth repellent wood. It's very easy to make them from balsa. Every thing looks great in this project!
    Hugs, Drora

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    1. Thanks! I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I'm hoping to make some 'display only' clothing to go on hangers so I might use one of the wire hanger tutorials I've seen where you make them from rubber covered paperclips.

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  5. Excellent work on the furnishings! Have you considered using plain color papers instead of painting? If you need larger than 12x12 scrapbook size, I've used drawing papers in the past.

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    1. Thanks! I seem to do better with furniture than houses at times.

      I thought about using paper, but I'd fallen in love with the paint color I had custom blended. I think I've hit on a solution for hiding the wires though.

      I routed the walls out pretty deep, then covered the areas with paint tape and textured the walls, removed the tape after it dried and then painted. I'll put the wires in, then add wood putty over them and paint the wood putty once it dries.

      I think that'll work.

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  6. Hi Sheila, I really really like the overall layout for the loft! Even with all the furniture it still has lots of space. The castors on all the pieces not only look amazing, but are super practical. I wish you luck taking everything apart to paint and wire... mine is in dry fit still and its always so exasperating when the pieces come apart. I love the look of a painted dollhouse, especially with real interior paint so I'm hopeful your plans work out!! Looks like the above commenters had some great ideas :)

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    1. Thanks! I've taken everything apart, not its a matter of getting everything put together and glued with the lights in place. Not looking forward to that.

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