Maine Yankee's Projects

The staining went fairly quick. I have two coat on everything in one evening.

I did the first coats on the drawers with a brush, wiping the excess. The second coat went on with the stain pen and took it to the color I wanted.

So I used the same routine with the frame, doing a little sanding in between. Looks okay and ready for poly in a day or two. This is going to be a lovely piece. I'll probably use it in several settings, at least for the photo shoots :)

While I was working on all of the drawers for the highboy, and waiting for them to dry, I put another coat of paint on the windows and frames and installed them.

They looked kind of plain, so I made extra trim and little sills for the inside. They look quite finished, now.

I got the wainscot on Friday and planned how it will fit. I also got a medallion for the parlor ceiling, from which the chandelier will hang. There's some dentil molding for the parlor and chair rail for the library, too.

Next up will be the second bookshelf and then the floors.

This puppy has lots of drawers, so I'll get my fill of playing with my gluing jig.

All of these openings will be filled with drawers by the time this night is over!

One by one they come together. I'm using colored glue again and I will let these dry until tomorrow evening before sanding and staining.

Magnets and brass bars are keeping everthing lined up until the glue sets. Tight and square is the secret.

Not bad for a nights work. Okay, so I lied. I actually made these yesterday (Saturday) and it took most of the day. Lots of drying time. But I worked on the windows at the same time, so nothing wasted ;)

The softness of basswood, and especially this old kit that was not stored in the best conditions, make it hard to get fine detail in these feet.

Now that I have a bit of experience making these feet on the cabriole legs, I'm anxious to switch to making my own legs out of harder woods. This whole piece would be lovely in mahogany! And I could do a much higher level of detail in hard wood so that you could see the joints in the toes and the talons on the tips!

No clamping possible with these. If I had little brass bar clamps that would span seven inches then I would prefer to have clamped them.

Even though they were not clamped, with little pains they came out quite even. No wobbles and ready for drawers... lots and lots of drawers!

I'm quickly running out of time on this project and will need to keep the level of detail low. This room will get a simple treatment with a few shelves, some wood floors, white ceilings and some stained trim.

I'm going with a warm buttery color for the walls and a medium stain for the wood.

The bookshelves will be these simple floor-to-ceiling pieces. I'll do two for now, one each side of that back window.

Nice contrast against the walls. However, I'm torn on what to do with the window trim. I was going to stain it, but now I'm worried about too much brown in there. Perhaps I'll go with white to match the windows and the window trim in the parlor.

The highboy is rather like a chest-on-chest with cabriole legs under it. Well, not quite, but it reminds me of that. So, we bring the bottom part together, then the top, after which we join the two. The fit was not that great with the lower part. And some warping was evident, likely due to the age and conditions in which it was stored, I suppose.

Once again, I am carving the feet into ball and claw. It is hard to get the detail set properly in the soft wood. The fibers tend to come apart when the file is applied.

Both parts required extensive clamping to get them to properly align while the glue dried.

Even the top piece, being glued in the picture above, was not a perfect fit. I suspect that this kit was stored in a damp place.

I think that this blue will work out okay for my Federal style rooms. It is fairly soft and will look sharp with white window trim and the white base.

One thing I still haven't figured out is what to do with the top of this thing. I may have to add a good-quality board to trim it out.

No more upholstery, yay!

See, now this is what I mean when I say that I'm making mini furniture!

For this project I wanted a quick job on the exterior. It is not really that important on a room box, but I wanted something "different" for the outside.

I decided to trim out the corners and the front edge of the clapboards first and then cut the pieces to fit. Was easy and all went quickly.

These clapboard panels are 24" long and made of MDF. Pretty easy to work with, but kind of fragile. I'm using contact cement to make things easy for myself. Just make sure to position it right the first time, 'cuz it is stuck for life!

Two hours of cutting and gluing and three sides are finished.

It took awhile to do the primer coat on the exterior. It would have been easier to prime before assembly, but I was afraid the thin MDF would warp. Even the thin coat of contact cement made the panels do funny things.

Primed and ready for the top coat tomorrow!

Never again! This chair is taking forever and it is not coming out very well at all. The fabric I chose is a tad too thick for this project and there is just waaaaay to much upholstery work it this kit. Bleh!

With over a dozen patterns to trace and cut and trim and install, I'm just frazzled.

Even though I am not happy with the finish, at least it is done. It looks cute in the room, but don't pick it up and look closely. It looks like a tatty old chair that grandma can't bear to part with, but can't afford to reupholster, either. :-/

Zinsser is your friend. Hitting the exterior with a quick coat.

The interior gets a shot, too, but not the floor or the inside of the drawer. The floor will be wood-to-wood and the inside of the drawer will stay plain. I think I'll leave the knob unpainted, too, and just give it a dip in the gloss poly.

So, here I am, sitting in my basement, making a bedspread with lace trim. Hey, what else is a guy going to do on a snowy Saturday afternoon, right? [sigh]

After doing this spread, I was NOT looking forward to doing a topper for the bed. I couldn't even imagine how.

Necessity being the mother of invention, Colin came up with a better way to skin the proverbial mouse trap (and other mixed metaphors.) I decided that this Colonial bed would look lovely with a wood valance! :)

Another great use for a bottle of wood glue, eh? I made the top a little larger than the valance frame and ran the router around the perimeter (on the underside, of course) to give it a finished look. Have not found a way to get a shot of the topper at an upward angle that will show the detail, but I will at some point.

The finished piece looks pretty good. Could use some nice, damask hangings around it. Hmm. I'll think about that. Not important right now. On to the chair.

As you can see, I gave up on the blue material that came with the kit. Too plain. That and I found this material with embossed stripes in it. A bit of a challenge to get the stripes aligned on each piece, but it will be a pretty, bedroom chair when done.

Upholstering a tiny chair is slow going. Lots of cutting and fitting, and then positioning, gluing and waiting for the glue to dry. It is definitely slowing me down, so I will likely dig out the duplex and get started with the primer.

The four posts went on easily and evenly. I sanded off the square corners and edges of all of the pieces for a softer look. I couldn't decide whether to string or stain first. It doesn't really matter, except that I don't like to handle the finish very much once I start staining and even less after the poly is on. Since stringing would require lots of handling, I ran the string before I did and finishing.

The top frame actually glues to the outside of the posts. Good design. Good amount of contact surface for the glue, which makes it very sturdy.

With the assembly done it was on to sanding and then the pre-stain conditioner. For the stain I used both a rag and a brush. The larger surfaces and those pesky, round posts were best done with a cloth, but the crevices required brush work. One coat of Minwax Red Mahogany gave me the color that I wanted.

It will likely be Saturday before I get to the poly. I'll use the semi gloss and probably use just one coat. Most Colonial era beds that I have seen did not have a high amount of gloss.

It fits the space very well. I've found some fabric that I will use for dressing the bed, and some material for the chair that is similar, but a little shinier. The pieces are part of a patchwork curtain, so my daughter is going to rip the seems to extract the pieces for me. I have no idea how I'm going to make the pieces, so stay tuned and expect a mini disaster!

Mom would be proud of me! Not only am I making my bed, but I'm having fun doing it ;) Okay, so it doesn't look like much, yet, but this is going to be a nice Colonial four-poster canopy bed for the bedroom room box.





I'm using my homemade, over-sized, magnetic gluing jig. The blue thing is a steel skin from a computer cabinet door and I have two different kinds of magnets. The bare, rectangular ones are very strong and can clamp some pressure as needed. The little, steel-sided square ones are very flexible to work with. Bought those from Micro-Mark.





The headboard is under a bit of pressure while the glue dries. You can see some glue squeezed out a the seam. I tint the wood glue with burnt umber acrylic paint to approximate the stain color I will be using. I sand off as much as possible, but the dark color makes it much less noticeable after staining.




Lots of sanding and gluing and staining left to do, but that's the easy part. The real challenge will be making the bed coverings!

Time for the wood glue and some pressure. Water pressure, you could say!





With the glue in the grooves and the pieces assembled, pressure and time make the assembly sure. Yes, it does begin to look like a room box, now.





I tried the blue, but then went to white for the trim. I had thought that white would wash out, but it looks sharp against the wood floor.






Gluing the window in place was a bit tricky. Neither piece was quite square, so clamps were needed until the glue dried.






Looking good and ready for the last of the interior trim. This is with two coats of high gloss poly. The top will likely get a third coat, but the rest looks great as is.

Since this is a bedroom, I looked for a toile wallpaper and used it floor-to-ceiling. I will add baseboard trim and cove molding at the top of the wall, both painted Williamsburg Blue. The trim will match the chair and I'll do bed coverings that match the paper.

All of the pieces stained well and pretty evenly. I used a cotton rag to apply the stain, which gave me good control.





No siding needed. In fact, I'm leaving the floor and ceiling plain, as well. The grains are just beautiful and should not be hidden unnecessarily.





It is a very pretty box. Hanging on the wall, it could also display things on top.

Doesn't look like much to start, but this is a very nice pile of parts. Solid pine base, floor and top. Great fit for the drawer and the parts. Lovely wood grains. A nice solid piece that you would be proud to display anywhere. I'm thinking of mounting it on a wall.





More than the sum of its parts? Yes, but the parts are very good. I started by dry fitting everything and it was all as advertised. Next we'll sand and stain the individual pieces.





Here is what I came up with for the setting of the room. It will be a Colonial bedroom with four-poster bed, upholstered chair, and flat-top highboy. Lots to do. Time to get started.

This is a good looking room box as it comes. The drawer takes it from being just a hobby display to being a piece of furniture that you would be happy to display about anywhere.


In the shot below you can see that it is well made without being heavy and overdone. Cabinet grade wood with lovely grains throughout. 1/4" birch plywood that needs only a very light sanding to be ready for stain.








With the walls being 1/4" I need to shave these standard windows down a bit. I'm going to put siding on the exterior, but I'm not sure just what, yet. I'm thinking of doing a parlor and a library with the two rooms. Between the rooms is an arched doorway. I need to think a bit more about this one, so I am doing the single room box first.

I'm working on a quick project with a friend who is expanding his miniatures business to include his own line of room boxes. We will be creating a new web site for his dollhouse minis and I will be finishing two of the designs and doing photos for the web site. It is kind of exciting to be the first one showing off a new product.

The box arrived on Tuesday, well-packed and in good shape. After removing most of the packing peanuts, here is what we have...





Top center in the carton is the two-room box, assembled. To the right and at the bottom of the photo are the base and the parts for the single room box. I asked for this to be sent unassembled since I find it easier to finish when I can start with components.

From here I will split into two sub-categories, one for each of the two room boxes