Whew! The plant stand fits in front of the window in the hall...confirmation that I measured correctly :)
I think I'll make curtains for the windows and plants to fill the stand today. I have a handful of new leaf punches I've been dying to try out.
Perhaps I'll even have enough time to frame some artwork for the hall. It would nice to see another room done, I started the Fairfield three years ago.
I had to build a chair for the desk in the Fairfield's study that would fit in the kneehole of the desk. Since I had such fun making tables with tiny turnings I kept going with them.
I like it! I'm excited to finish the room, I want to see it filled with stuff...this is meant to be Grandma's private room, off limits to company, so is where her clutter will accumulate.
Tonight I will turn these into a plant stand...
I made an end table and coffee table from tiny turnings last night. They need to be either painted or stained yet. I'll do that tonight.
I love tiny turnings...I need to buy more when I'm in Chicago next month.
I'm now done with all of the furniture I need to finish the Chantilly. I need to make a desk chair and plant stand for the Fairfield, then I can finish accessorizing both houses.
On a side note...I miss Google Friend Connect...I miss lots of readers, and comments....my visitor statistics have dropped significantly...I feel a bit lonely.
I'll have to think of something nice to do as a give-away for those of you still hanging in there with me...in multiple scales, since I know not many of you work in half scale, like I do....maybe a custom build....hmm..... Suggestions are welcome, if you've got one.
From this... to this...
was not easy.
I got the pins and holes done in each piece, but couldn't get them assembled together without making a mess. Pins pushed through, wood split, I swore a lot, it was a disaster. Eventually I pulled most of the pins out in a big frustrated snit. I ended up gluing it together with new, longer, headed pins which are pushed all the way through the pieces and are visible....except for the arms, those went on fine with hidden pins.
It's a bit crooked, but it's together and it's not horrible. I'd start over with new pieces on a different day, fresh with renewed optimism that a second try would be easier...but I'm weary and cynical, so I won't, I'll use this as is.
I got a great deal on ebay on some old Tootsie Toy furniture, some of which is broken (hence the great deal).
The chairs all sit higher than my other half scale miniatures. I thought I could just cut a bit off the bottom of the legs, but the metal is very brittle, and I ended up snapping the legs of the first chair I tried it on into pieces. I also broke a little piece of the seat off.
I used a piece of one of the legs I snapped off to repair the other broken legged chair, then sanded the legless base down to accept newly built wooden legs.
I used pins, glue and many curse words to hold a new base together...
...then gave it a coat of paint and a seat pad. Whallah, new chair!
I also made the table...I used pins and glue to put legs cut from some 1/12 scale railing I'm never going to use onto a wooden circle. The top of the table is darker than I wanted, it really soaked up the stain...but it's not so dark that I can't live with it.
While I was waiting for glue to dry I cut and stained pieces to make a chair for the living room. Provided I've planned and measured correctly these bits of wood will look like a piece of furniture tomorrow.
I did some ebay shopping one evening when I was bored but too tired to work in my studio...spent some of my hard earned overtime pay.
I bought a set of refrigerator magnets from Hong Kong.
I really just wanted the record player and TV, but the price was right for the whole set. I'll use them all in various dollhouses except for the table with sushi, that will stay on the refrigerator. The telephone is way too big for half scale, so I'm going to see if I can get it off the stand then give it away (Brae, are you interested?).
I absolutely adore the old style record player.
I also bought a die cast cabinet. I already own one, this gives me a set.
I'm going to spend more of my overtime pay on a weekend in Chicago to attend the Bishop International Show. I think I'm going to fly down this time instead of drive. I hope the hotel has some rooms left!
I made some time to play in my studio yesterday...it felt nice. I'm sure that today I will regret not having gone into the office, as I had planned, but I really needed some 'me time'.
I worked on what needs to be done before I can fill the rest of the rooms with furniture.
I put doorknobs on the front door. I used brass Houseworks knobs on the interior, but made my own pulls for the exterior from jump rings and crimp beads. I glued them in the middle of the doors, as I observed on my trip to France, rather than on the edges of the door, like we do in the U.S. Doorknobs have a keyhole in the middle, but pulls do not, so I mounted a keyhole for a lock a little higher on the door (it's another crimp bead, flattened a bit with a hammer).
I also glued the carraige lamp in place. I didn't like the look of the tall narrow light bulb, so I replaced it with a crystal bead, since the lamp isn't wired to electricity and is just decorative.
After the door was completed I began on the artwork. I came to the conclusion that I definitely need to procure a pair of angle cutters, as working with the miter box and saw to make all the picture frames became quite tedious.
All of the pictures except for those in the stairwell have been glued in place to cover where the tabs and slots of the walls come together.
I'm still deciding on placement for the pictures in the stairwell. I've got to crowd them together to cover a long tab (which is under the top of the white framed and bottom of the blue framed picture). I'm not necessarily opposed to having them that close together, but it means I need to frame a few more...and I need to decide if I want to add another row at the top, to make them come up higher on the second story wall.
Ignore the piece of wood taped along the top of the stairs, it's a spacer to ensure the bottom row of pictures are hung at the same height from the steps.
Also....sorry the colors are a bit off in the pictures, I had to use my little camera instead of my big one.
There was a bad winter storm here last weekend. I live in northern Michigan, which means we're used to a lot of snow...this is the first time I can remember that a State of Emergency was declared in several counties. We got between one and two feet (30-60 cm) of heavy, super wet snow which knocked down a lot of trees and limbs, taking down power and telephone lines with them. The roads were impassable for most of Saturday, the snow was so heavy it was as if everything was covered with two feet of wet cement. The road crews got the main roads cleared right away, but some of the smaller side roads, including my street, weren't plowed until Monday.
We lost power Friday night, it was finally restored late Monday afternoon. The temperature inside my house was down to 52° F (11° C) on Sunday morning. At that time the forcast to have our power restored was pushed out to late Tuesday afternoon. We have hot water baseboard heat and started to worry about those pipes, which run along the inside of the exterior walls of the entire house, freezing and bursting. My brilliant husband got the furnace motor running using an inverter powered by one of the cars. (The burner on the furnace is gas, so was already functioning.) We'd start the car, let the furnace heat the house up, shut the car off, let the house cool down, turn the car back on....
Anyway...I'm back online, with several hundred of your blog posts to catch up on. I've missed you all!
