Building the Box

Two blog posts this time, as the one on the windows was a little short.

I cut the walls from quarter inch thick craft plywood I had picked up at Joann.  All I can say is “Ugh!”  I knew I wouldn’t enjoy this part, but I thought it would go a little more smoothly than it did.  The straight cuts went OK.  I used my mini table saw from MicroMark (and a jeweler’s saw to get the diagonal cuts on the floor), and that part went well.  Here you can see me dry fitting as I cut.

However, for the internal cuts, I had a terrible time.  I had heard that using a jigsaw is as easy as using a sewing machine.  It’s not.  I can sew just fine, but I could not get that jigsaw to go where I wanted it to go.  Finally, the spousal unit stepped in and saved the day.  The cuts weren’t perfect, but they were better than mine.  I then used a Dremel, a file, my mini files and some sandpaper to enlarge the holes and even them out as best I could.  As you can see, they got a little wavy, due to the Dremel.  However, once they’re trimmed out, that shouldn’t be noticeable.  You can see them below with the windows temporarily in place.

Since the boards are 6 inches in width, I didn’t trim them down, but am using approximately one inch at the bottom for the foundation.

I primed and sanded all my pieces and cut foundation supports for the floor.  To get the height I wanted, I sandwiched together three lengths of half-inch wide strip wood. I also had to separately cut the fireplace extension, since the 12” x 12” piece of plywood I bought from Joann was not long enough.

I painted the walls the dark green (it’s washed out in the photo below) and then applied my wallpaper.  You can see I have left a little loose on the edges to cover the seams once the walls are glued in place.

I could find no miniature wallpaper that was even close to the wallpaper in the library, so I took a screen shot of the paper from a picture online and tiled it to make my own.  Even though I had a nice, clear screen shot from a close-up picture of the wall, once I had shrunk it down to 1:24 size, it was way too dark and the pattern was lost.  I fiddled around with filters (brightness, contrast, warmth, saturation), until I got something I felt I could live with.  It’s a little too gold, but brown just made the pattern fade out.  I then printed it out on HP Bright White paper (which is a little heavier than standard printer paper) on my printer’s “Best” setting.  Finally, I sprayed it with matte sealer to protect it.  I know people have had problems with home-printed wallpaper.  I’ve been printing my own for several years now and <knock wood> have had no problems so far.

Then it was gluing time.  I love my right-angle clamps for a job like this.  You can see some sandwiched strips of wood sticking out on the left-hand side.  This is actually the piece I eventually glued under the fireplace extension.  I was using it temporarily when gluing the floor because the left-hand side kept wanting to dip down.

I glued in the extension for the fireplace, then encased it with stripwood.

And here it is.  I trimmed out the front foundation with more strip wood.  Not sure how I will finish it (stain? paint? cover?) so for now it’s unpainted.  I will wait until the fireplace and wainscoting are in before I put the valance on the fireplace wall.  You can see I went with the half wall on the right-hand side.  I felt it opened the room up more.  The box will also eventually get a ceiling, but for now I’m leaving it off, as that makes it easier for me to get my hands in to decorate.

You can also see the herringbone grid I have printed out for laying the floor of the fireplace.  I intend to use sandpaper bricks for that.