Heat Registers/Vents and Other Little Things

Little things, you know.  Like the kitchen wallpaper and the doors and windows interior woodwork.

I was all set to make heat registers like Kris's tutorial when I realized I'd have to cut into the wainscoting to get them flush against the wall, at least in the front room.  And since I didn't want to do that, and I wanted all the heat registers to be the same throughout the house, I had to come up with something different.  See below.

Ignore the goofy wood near the understairs.  I've got to fill that in a bit and stain it more.

I bought some jewelry findings from Hobby Lobby.

They're pretty thin and not hard to work with.

Then clipped the ends off them to make them more oval/rectangular in shape.

More workable now.

I cut a rectangle of thin cardboard and edged it out with strip wood.  I painted the wood with a black metallic and the cardboard inside with a flat black.  Hopefully to make it look a bit more realistic.

Then used sticky tacky glue to attach the metal filigree jewelry finding to the top.

Not perfect but decent looking for a first attempt.

I initially thought I'd set them on the floors and got some wood painted but Keli over at iseecerulean pointed out that they'd need to be level with the floor or they'd look wrong.  So I'd have to cut into the floors.  And she was absolutely right.  So this is my attempt at something more realistic.  Because cutting into the glued down front room floor was not something I was really willing to attempt.

I have seen heat registers on top of the floor but not by much and there's no way I'd be able to do anything the would look realistic in 1:12 scale.  Keli offered to send me some of her jewelry findings from her stash to try out but I think these work and I'd already purchased them.  Thanks Keli, very much, for the offer and the help.

I think these work, I hope.  Opinions?

I also worked on the windows.  Painted all the new woodwork flat black. Let it dry. Glued them into the frames and waited for that to dry.  Then took out the glass and painted the crossbars metallic black.  It's not easy to tell they're there but I know that they're done and I think once the windows are in they'll look more realistic than the flat glass on the inside.

And I did the same for the doors.  I am so glad that those are done.

See what I mean? You can hardly tell at all.

But I'm still glad I did it because if I didn't it would totally bother me.  This way, even if you can't tell, I know the crossbars are there.

I also ordered some of Marion Russek's window fittings from Shapeways.  Here's a link to her post.  They're just gorgeous.  I ordered mine in black but they won't arrive for a while yet.  I maybe ordered too many but extras are never a bad thing. 

I've been wallpapering and doing the woodwork for the front room a lot this week.  And it's all pretty much on the walls.  Yay.

I'm pretty pleased with how it looks so far.  I re-checked how the second floor/ceiling looks and it seems to work well still.

There's my little heat register/vent.  Real looking enough?

I also put up the wallpaper on the kitchen walls.  I don't want to add a lot of trim here until I've decided on the cabinets.  They have to be flush to the walls so I don't want to add baseboards to the interior wall or the back wall until I've gotten those figured out.  But I do like how the brick looks.

I'm thinking one wall, the interior, could have a big hutch on it.  And the back wall would have the sink, stove and fridge.

The other option is a smaller hutch on the interior wall and a stand alone sink, one of those old fashioned ones with iron legs and exposed pipe.  Then it's only the stove and fridge on the back wall with cabinets and open shelving over them.  With vent/fan over the stove.  Which I'd have to make. 

Thoughts?

One last look at my heat register.  I still like it. How do you guys feel?