Library room box, part 5

Read the previous posts about this project: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

If you wonder how far I have got with my library project - not far. I was away for a week, and now I am back at work, grading student essays. But I have moved on a bit since last time.

 

To begin with, I have added fake drawers to the second book case, and I have made one fake open drawer with index cards. It was a lot of work, but I think the effect is worth while. Again, perception trick: if one drawer is open, then all others potentially open as well (but they don't). 

Secondly, I am making books. In this picture, you can clearly see the difference between fake book spines and individually made books, even though they are also fake, that is, do not open. Once you have done something that looks better, you can't unsee. In my previous post, I estimated that I would need a hundred individual books. The two middle rows on the right, that are individual books, have 15 books each. Which makes it a total of 120. Right, just 90 more to make. Plus some more on the table and on the floor. Luckily, I am not in a hurry. 

It takes ten to fifteen minutes to make a fake book, depending on the method. The simple is to glue together two or three pieces of cardboard and wrap them in a cover. 

 

Small Stuff's printables acknowledged with gratitude. 

I deliberately make some books thick and some thin, some slightly smaller. Even rows of books do not look natural. But two cases filled with variations of just three very similar spines don't look natural either. 

Small Stuff also has these rows of book spines:

 

I have used them to make individual books, gluing on suitable front and back covers. The amateur book-binder in me winces, but it works - at least until I find a better method. 

Finally, I got this PDF from someone in a Facebook group - thank you! - book spines again, that don't work the way I want, but I have again made individual books with them.

 

There are dozens of other printables on the web, so there will be more variety on my shelves. In the past, I made books with many different methods, including properly bound, opening and almost readable books. Unfortunately, most of my supplies are in storage at the moment so I will have to manage with what I have. And I don't have a printer so every time I need to print out I do it stealthily at work. One day they will catch me. Then I will say it is an educational project. 

Library room box, part 4

Read the previous posts about this project: part 1, part 2 and part 3.

As expected, I didn't have much time to work on this project during the week, but I made some progress during the weekend. My initial intention was to build a book case myself, and I even had a daring design involving a chocolate box, but I changed my mind and bought two unfinished units.

I didn't take pictures of every stage of the transformation, but it took fifteen coats of stain, sanding in between, and three coats of varnish. I am used to high quality House of Miniature kits, and even those need a look of work. These were cheap, but I didn't give up, and I am quite pleased with the result:

I put the cases inside the room tentatively, just to test. The books are also cut out in haste, so they will be improved.

What you see here is a perception trick. Because some books are real, single 3D objects (although they don't open), the eye is tricked to believe that the fake books are real too. I haven't decided how many books will be real. If I go for single books, I will need about a hundred. It doesn't take long to make a non-opening book, and they doubtless look better. And if I do a dozen every now and then it won't get boring.

I considered two option for the bases. It is now clear to me that there is no space for a filing cabinet, so it would be a good idea to make fake index-card drawers. But I also tested metal embellishment.

 

I even consulted a library assistant. She said the embellishment was pretty, but the drawers were more authentic. Drawers it is, then.

 

It was quite a lot of work. The drawers are fake, that is, they don't open. The fronts are made from coffee stirrers. I glued them on, trying to space them as evenly as possible - I am not very good at it. Then I drilled holes and inserted leftover metalware from House of Miniatures kits.

I obviously need a desk, and I have a Duncan Phyfe library table that I made some years ago. It was used in a different project, that, however, is not dependent specifically on a library table, it can be any sideboard, while I think this will be perfect. These drawers do open, so I need to think about what to put in them. What would librarians have in their desk drawers?

 

 

This is as far as I got this weekend. I will need library steps to match, and so far I haven't figured out how I can make them. I have some ideas about ceiling lights. And of course, books, books, books.

Infidelity

Every now and then I very reluctantly replace a piece of furniture that I made a long time ago with something better, either something I have have made better or bought. Each time I feel I am betraying an old friend. But sometimes it becomes inevitable. Everyone would agree that this:

looks better than this:

 

I mean the book case in the rear corridor of course. My old faithful book case that I made with so much care and wit eight yars ago and that I very recently attached to the wall with velcro.

But I cannot help it. I found some nice things at a charity shop today.

The lovely little perfume bottle will, I believe, make a nice table lamp. The case on the right is not to scale, and at the moment I don't know what I will do with it. But the one on the left I felt at once was going to replace the old book case.

There were some problems though. Most books in the old book case were too large. Before I had time to change my mind I took my new favourite tool and resized all books.

 

Some were too thick and looked unnatural so I had to tear them apart and remove some "pages". Some I had to throw away (weeping with remorse). Then I had to make some more, to fill the shelves. Most of the old books were bound in black, so this time I added green, red and blue, painting the spines with gold.

Here is the room with the new rear corridor:

Gentlemen's smoking room

I have made considerable progress, adding three more lights in rear rooms, but because the front rooms are not finished there isn't much to show. I used the same technique as for the first corridor, with small LED-strips. So far, I am halfway through the gentlemen's smoking room, which is on the second floor to the right. It is a very interesting room, but there were many challenges.

This looks pathetic.

The stairwell is for the stairs that are invisible on the floor below - one really bad fault in the design that I have mentioned before. I am not using the stairs so will not use the stairwell either. The space is a complete waste. I won't use the prescribed divider because it won't be visible from any angle. I won't even bother closing the hole. But the tiny back room to the right will have a book case, my very first book case that I am still pleased with. I only need to add some books and fix them permanently, because the book case will have to be permanently attached to the back wall and won't be accessible after I have sealed the partition. It means that I have to think about everything before I do it.

For instance, I had thought I'd just have a plain green wall because it won't be visible. But this partition has an arch rather than a door, so there is more space visible than in the other rear rooms. There is a bit of wall above the book case that would look better with matching wallpaper.

And although I only needed a small bit of wallpaper I realised that I had to put in cornices. I also added a dado rail, although a fake one, just made from a coffee stirrer. Still, it will look neat this way.

As I said, the book case will have to be attached to the back wall. I haven't decided yet how to do it. Since the book case is made from a photo frame it actually has a hook. I could also simply glue it onto the wall. If you wonder why I don't use blue tack, I don't trust it, because sooner or later it will go off, and then I am in trouble. There is no way I would be able to do anything in the rear room after I have put in the partition.

Therefore I have only put it in temporarily. I will need to consider further possible problems.

I think this arch is a very interesting feature. It adds variety to the rooms.

To test what it will be like when I am finished I put in some objects.

There will be a fake ceiling light, dado rails and cornices. I am not sure this is the right floor, but I may change it later. I am very pleased with this room. 

Filling the shelves

A beautiful cabinet needs beautiful books. I printed out rows of books, but as you can see the printie simply replicates the same pattern. To make it more realistic, I re-shuffled books on one of the shelves. I glued the row onto card and left two flaps on both sides. It is also important to cut out the top of the books, otherwise it looks unnatural.

 To make it still more realistic, I added some individual books that can lean agaist each other or lie flat. Such details make the obverver forget that the rest is fake.

A half-scale study

I never tried the half-scale, that is, the 1:24 scale, and never had any intention to do so until I bought this set of furniture in a thrift shop, bundled in a plastic bag among children's toys. I had no particular plans, and I didn't even like the furniture, but miniaturists are hopeless - they buy things they think may perhaps eventually likely come handy one day. I have no idea where these things come from - except that some time later I found a matching armchair in a serious antique shop, but the owner didn't know what it was and didn't see much value in it.

 

What I did have was a wooden wine-bottle box, the kind that come with very expensive wines that you get as a gift. It felt exactly the right size to make a half-scale room box. To begin with I simply put the sofa, desk and clock in the box and added a couple of things.

 

The fireplace is made from embossed wallpaper which in this scale proved just right for the carved-marble effect. The fireguard is a clothes hook. The table is made from a chess piece with a large copper coin on top. The kettle and milk jar - probably bracelet charms - were part of a lot I bought at Portobello Road market in London. I made the bookcase from two building blocks, added decoration to match the desk and glued on book rows from a catalogue (the famous image from Bodlean Library). The window is cut from a plastic fruit container. 

I then tried various flooring, but in this scale even very thin strips of wood look unnatural so I had to compromise with paper floors. I chose the smallest-patterned wallpaper, and I also used paper for rugs because even the thinnest fabric felt wrong. I made curtains from ribbons

And of course I added pictures, candlesticks and other small things. The round picture frames are buttons. The vase is the tip of a ball-point pen.

Of course most of the furniture was ready-made, and there isn't much to add to this project. Yet it was very interesting to work in this scale because everything you are used to suddenly becomes gigantic. Now I certainly understand the attraction of this scale. 

Red wall

This is the view of the study and the adjacent sitting area, with the front wall removed. The wall is painted red, like the wall in the sitting area. Since it is a removable wall I cannot put any heavy objects on it, but I made several semi-flat pieces. 

First, I made a fake bookcase.  It is just a flat piece of wood with rows of books cut from a magazine and "sideboards" of lolly sticks, which produce a sense of depth.

Then I made a sewing table, also flat, with a flat sewing machine and some other funny flat things I bought in a hobby shop - they must be for scrapbooking. Since the tablecloth and the rug match the furniture they create a sense of additional space.

 This is the whole wall, removed from the house.

Modern study

In the middle of the upper floor there was a square hole, the size of a window. I have no idea what the creator of the house intended it to be. I considered building a winding staircase, but there was already a staircase, and it would take too much of the floor. So I just sealed it. I wanted this corner of the house to be bright green, but I didn't have green paint so instead I papered it with colour printer paper. Remember, there also was a window in the wall which I had sealed (the bedroom is on the other side). This room is a study. I first wanted it to be an artist's studio, but then I remembered that magnificent shelf I had in the cellar of my original house and realised that its time had come. The shelf was twice as large as I needed, so reluctantly after all these years I sawed off a bit. 

 

Then I put some ornaments in the shelf. Some of them immediately looked wrong, as in the left picture. I started filling it with books. I was lucky to find a magazine with a whole page of books. I cut out each square individually and pasted on card with flaps that I could shove into the square in the shelf. I made the mistake of cutting the upper edges straight, but it didn't look natural, so I had to take them out and cut again, with uneven edges.

This is how I made the swinging chair. The base is a plastic door handle, and the lever, a bit of a spray bottle. The seat and back are made of cardboard, lined with padding and covered with fabric.

 I made the writing desk from my famous venetian blind and strong wire. The CD player, speakers, remote, the computer keyboard and mouse are cut from a catalogue, while the computer screen is a lid from a little plastic jewel box. The blind is cut from a placemat. The wastepaper basket is a bottle cap. In this pictire the floor is still bare.

 

Lord Asriel's room

Our youngest son was visiting and admiring my dollhouse and roombox, and I asked him, mostly as a joke, whether he'd like me to make one for him. Interestingly enough, yes, he would, and when I asked what kind of room he wanted, he said Lord Asriel's study. Lord Asriel is a mad scientist and magician in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. He lives in a alternative world which means that his room could have absolutely anything. That was a challenge. What would a scientist with magical powers have in his room? To begin with, I made Newton's cradle with small metal beads. On the right, there is a strange object the origin of which I don't know, but I thought it looked just what Lord Asriel would have.

 

I decided that the wallpaper should be dark blue, and I used ordinary coloured printer paper which I splashed with gold paint. For the ceiling I used a bit of blue corrugated cardboard I happened to have, possibly a wine-bottle case. I made flagstone floor like the one I have in my Victorian kitchen only I cheated this time. I rolled out a bit of clay large enough to cover the floor and made patterns on it with a pencil.

 

I made a book case just like the one I have in my Victorian house, and I made a low table to put all Lord Asriel's instruments on. I wanted telescopes that could move, and I used cufflinks to make them. I used all kinds of springs and cogs and wires and weird-looking metal things and bottles. I made a standard lamp using a mini candlestick, a bit of a fluid soap pump and a brass button on top. I made a little table to hold the Golden Compass which I made from a schampoo cap and a hand from a broken clock. I painted magical signs on the compass with a golden pen. I changed fabric on the chair using a bit of a leather purse. I cut the map from a catalogue and made a frame from grill sticks. The Persian rug is cut from a pencil case. I used drinking straws for pipes. I don't remember how I came up with this idea, but it became an interesting feature. 

 

Of course I had to fill the book case with books. Since I don't print out anything from the web I had to use whatever I found in catalogues that would fit in Lord Asriel's library and that would be meaningful for me and my son. So apart from the obvious Oxford English dictionary I found titles such as The Secret of Life, Antimatter and How Professors Think.

This is the final view of the room before I sent it away to Sweden, carefully packed in my husband's car.The strange object in the left bottom corner is a bit of a broken latte whisk.

Miniature books, part 2

If you just want a book case or shelf full of books, the best way is to find a magazine or catalogue that has rows of book spines. I always save them (just as I save everything else). Here is how I made a shelf full of books

 

I cut rows of books from a magazine and glued onto card. The small bits of card create a sense of depth. It is also important to cut the upper edges. I once tried to cheat and cut them even, and the effect was gone.

 

The result looks like this. In the upper row, I glued in tiny pieces of cardboard, one by one of appropriate size, to make them look like book pages. In the other rows there is nothing behind the front.

You would never guess what I made the shelf from. The inside of a box of chocolates!

 See also Miniature books, part 1