Chapter 90a - Step Tansu Chest, Two Low Chairs, Cushions, Bamboo Shades, Various Intermediate work

August 12th - 16th 2014

This chapter had a few more chairs to add to the house and a tansu chest.  These chests are pretty common and quite nice.  There are lots of different kinds but the step chest is quite pretty and I was looking forward to making it as I have lots of interesting articles to position on it.  But before I did that, I decided to put the chairs together and to make a bunch of floor cushions.

These chairs have been made numerous times so I won’t go thru the process again but I decided this time to actually upholster them instead of making a cushion to place on top.  I really liked the effect of the leather chairs so I made some fixed cushions on these chairs using more of my Japanese cotton fabric.  When I was looking for the leather seat cushions I noticed that a lot of these folding type chairs have a fixed cushion so, that’s what I did. 

Making the padding seat from card stock and foam.

Adding the fabric and gluing and taping in place.

Finished low chairs with fixed seat cusions.

Next was cutting up some fabric to make around 8-10 floor cushions that will be thrown around the fire pit room.  I already had a sort of tutorial on how to make these cushions so I won’t go thru it again here.  Suffice to say it took a little while as there were lots of small angles and lots of double sided sticky tape....  But I ended up finding a rhythm and completed all of them in around an hour one afternoon.  I then made a few with a french knot in the middle and then stacked them and placed them in their appropriate room.  Lots of cushions now for our guests in the fire pit room.

Cutting up various fabric pieces to make the cushions.

Stacked cushions in place.

I then worked on making my roasting fish skewers.  Added them to the irori pit and placed the pit in the middle of the room.  Since I have no more rooms to add, I also decided to pull out lots of little objects and place them in different areas.  I made some little umbrellas outside the front door and just added general things to give some nice detail to the house.  I placed the little tumblers and such on the appropriate trays and added some more food stuff and even made some rice for my bowls.  My first attempt using Fimo. It was fun adding stuff to the rooms now that I can!  I even added some beer labels to the bottles (altho one is actually for matches - just I really liked the tiger!)

Adding some umbrellas outside the front portico.

Making some Fimo rice using an extracter and a razor blade.

Filled rice bowls (hardened in oven)

Making cardstock legs for two small food tables (zen)

Gluing the table legs in place.

Adding food stuff to the dish. Salmon ready to skewer and roast.

Some quick beer labels.

Firepit with food stuff and roasting fish.

Next up were the bamboo shades.  Course I was convinced I remembered how to do them and of course, I really didn’t.  I had a very tough time getting the tiny triangular beads onto the DMC thread.  Then once I did, I realized I had forgotten to pass back through to the right side so that when I pull up and down on the thread, the shades roll and unroll in the right direction.  Anyway, one shade is technically backwards but the others I managed to force the beads thru the bamboo slats to the back side and then glue them all in place.  I then glued them into position on the windows of the second floor.  Done!

Threading the DMC for the pulls.

Cutting the back sections to attach the shades to the house.

Shades now attached to the house.  Looking pretty good!

The last part of this chapter’s work was the small lantern I decided to add to the spa.  I just had the LED installed and positioned in the center which, after seeing how easy the little lanterns were, wasn’t really nice.  So, I made one for the spa as well!

Small lantern for the spa LED.

I’ve decided to postpone the tansu chest for now as I’d like to see how the roof is going to be attached.  The next chapter has a section of roof and the final pieces of the tansu chest so I will start the chest once I've made a part of the roof.  I'm just too curious to understand how it fits!

UPDATE Additional info on the Zen Table
August 18th 2014

The Zen table, tho very small, is very cute and maybe more than one of you would like to know how it was made.  Obviously, you can adjust the templates to your own scale.  This one is just a scan of the leg template on the page and then I adjusted to the 1/20 scale size.  I think the actual leg size was about 11mm wide.  I used a small leftover square of balsa wood for the table top instead of card stock but you could easily do it with a few layers of cardstock.  The legs were two layers as well then cut with an exacto knife and glued into place (see above pic).  The instructions are in Italian but the fotos are self explainatory.  Hope this inspires you to try one! They are super cute!

Table leg template. Cut out four.

Chapter 87 - The Sliding Windows to the Left Side Second Floor Porch, Two Chairs, A TV

July 26th - 30th 2014

This chapter just has a few objects to provide a little distraction before embarking upon the railings and awnings of the porch.  The windows were straight forward as was the TV (having already made a few) but this time there were two new chairs to construct.

So, first thing I did was to paint the sliding window pieces and the two support pieces the usual brown.  Then to glue up the windows and add the panes.  Last step was to aggressively sand down the piece where the windows get slotted into place.  Then the final two windows were inserted.  Then, I realized this was the last porch window set I would be doing.  Hurrah!!

You can see the space where I had to sand down for fitting the sliding windows.

Windows in and functional!

The next step was the TV.  I did some searches on the net and found that the TV’s in the kit are very closely modeled after actual 1960’s Japanese television sets.  Which is pretty neat that they would be so attentive to such a detail.  But since I already had two TV’s in the house and honestly I didn’t know where to put this one, I decided to make a portable TV.  So I had to look for some pics and I did find quite a few from that time. 

Cheesy 60's portable TV - inspiration.

I liked the color combinations especially (powder blue and beige) but I had to bash the kit a bit to make the TV portable. I cut back the side pieces and rounded the edges.  I then painted the TV a sort of blue (I don’t have any blue! So had to use some light Williamsburg Blue) and the buttermilk.  I then painted the front of the TV grey (it’ll be turned off) and the dials gold.  I also used a 0.05 fine point marker to ink in the black stripe in the front.  After letting the paint dry, I glued the TV into it’s cabinet and painted the whole thing with a bit of varnish.  I then added the antenna to the back and a handle to the top (which was a metal collar clip from my son’s new dress shirt).  I think the TV is pretty funky!  It’ll look better once it’s positioned downstairs in the kitchen.

The TV cabinet before shaping.

After shaping and a little color.

Finished cabinet and TV ready for insertion.

Finished portable TV.

TV ready to entertain the busy cooks.

Next were the two low chairs.  There were quite a few small pieces but went together quickly.  Once glued, I just had to sand the straight edges a bit then paint them black then varnish.  Next were the seat cushions.  I was undecided on these since I was unsure if leather was actually used on these types of chairs.  I really wanted to use the leather even if I couldn’t find many examples of leather cushions so I cut out some pieces on the bias, trimmed them and used double sided tape to attach the leather to the cushion piece.  I am really glad I did use the leather since the final result is quite nice and the leather fabric, being a coated fabric and faux leather, didn’t unravel during the cutting and fitting.  Very clean final look.

The low chairs before sanding and smoothing the edges.

Cutting the second leather piece.

Finished low chairs with leather cusions.

While I was working on these pieces, I had come across an artisan on FaceBook named Antonio Malacario who makes miniatures for manger scenes.  His work, especially the bird cages and iron work, are very detailed and special.  I came across a cage that would look great in the outside kitchen area and seemed small enough to fit.  Unfortunately, by the time I contacted him, it had been used in a manger bell dome scene and he didn’t have any others immediately available.  But he did have some other cages.  After a few sessions of messaging, he came  up with a cage that satisfied me so I purchased it.  (He accepts PayPal).  He was so nice I figured I’d risk it.  Who knew.  Maybe I just threw away €40.00 but at least if it did arrive it would be nice (I hoped).  All my doubts were erased when the package arrived from Naples today less than a week after the purchase.  The cage is absolutely gorgeous!  It’s the beat up look, stained and dirtied, the little door opens and it even has a removable tray under the birds (which he included) and a feed trough which removes as well.  The only thing I changed was that I put some Japanese newspapers in the bottom tray and dirtied it up with some bird poo.  I think it looks great!  I obviously had to figure out a way to hang it from the pergola so I used some leftover pieces from the TV set and made a hook and glued it to the upper pergola.  Fantastic!

Antonio's super bird cage. Door opens and bottom tray slides out.

I added some poo poo'd Japanese newspaper in the tray.

Sliding feed tray for my hefty birds.

Bird cage in place!

And the kicker is he included a few little extra surprises.  A little fork (which will go outside in the outside kitchen cabinet with the hibachi), a small soup container and lid and the best was a LED lamp with a tack like way of attaching to the house.  Basically, I had been thinking of putting a LED outside in the pergola area but I couldn’t find anything that I liked.  I knew it had to be rustic - like a naked bulb or something.  Well, Antonio must have read my mind because this lamp is super perfect!  The only small problem is that the LED is a 12v but I’ll try and figure out a way to light it up! 

Extra little surprises in the package.

"Un caro saluto da Antonio"

What a treat! Like Christmas in July!!
Excellent.

Chapter 68 - Floor and Back Wall of Left Hand Room Second Floor, Two Small Chairs and Seat Cushions Tutorial

October 7th - 8th 2013

Construction of the floor and back wall was very straight forward.  Just glueing and waiting.  The kit says to paint the back wall ochre but I wasn’t too keen on that.  So I made that wall beige and will probably make the side wall where the doors are an ochre color.  This room is to be the room with the grill in the middle of the floor.  So some cooking colors are pretty appropriate. 

Floor and Back Wall

The little chairs have been made so many times but I wasn’t sure if I every really gave many details so, here are some particulars.

Pieces to the Small Chairs

The wooden pieces are shown in the foto.  Their measurements are :
2 pieces 18mmx26mm (#7 in the foto)
2 pieces 25mmx23mm (#8 in the foto)
4 pieces in the shape #9 in the foto 30mm by 5mm at the thickest end
4 pieces in the shape #10 in the foto 30mm by 2mm by 3mm where the hump is

You just need to glue two piece #9 to the piece #7 to form the back of the chair.  Then two piece #10 to piece #8 to form the seat (the hump goes towards the back).  Then glue them together using the straight widest bottom edge of #9 as a reference to line up to the straight edge of the seat.  Once that’s done, just paint and varnish. 

Chair glued.  Be sure to line up the sides with a 1mm overhang

Painted and varnished chairs.

The cushions are quite easy as well.
Just take two pieces of lightweight material (cotton is best as it doesn’t look bulky) measuring 7cm by 4cm.  Apply strips of double sided tape as shown in the pic.  Use packaging materials (the kit came with that foamy stuff you use to wrap glass in) which are light and can be bulked up by layering (instead of having something too thick to start with).  Use one small square about 27mm by 22mm and one 30mm by 27mm.  Just one square slightly smaller than the other.  That way you have a sort of cushioned rise in the center area.  You can use tape to hold the two pieces together.  Fold the fabric in half creasing the tape and the fabric.  Tape the cushion material on the top half of the seat.  Cut away some fabric at the corners to allow for angling in the folds.  Remove the tape and fold over using the actual width of the tape (5mm) as a guide. 

Double sided tape on the fabric

Cushion material positioned, corners trimmed for folding.

Fold over the edges using the tape as a guide

Next step is to make the “tassels” that will be attached to the four corners of the seat cushion.  I am using red here because these cushions are going in the red Buddha room. 
Take a piece of cardboard 15mm wide and wrap around some thread (around 12 times for sewing thread size).  You can use DMC too so color selection is endless.  Glue the top and bottom edges of the thread by just spreading a little glue across the top.  Once dry, remove the thread from the cardboard by sliding it off or just cutting it down the middle.  The top and bottom will stay glued.  Use the exacto knife to cut thru the two bunches and create four small tassels.  Add some double sided tape to the inside of the cushions and apply the tassels to the four corners.  Close over the cushion and pinch the tassels into shape.  Using the same thread color, run one stitch through top to bottom (I made a small french knot on the top of the cushion) and secure on the other wrong side.  With all the tape inside, it’s not necessary to secure it excessively.

Wrap the thread round a small piece of cardboard

Snip it off from the cardboard then split each tassel into two tassels. (four per cushion)

Add tape to the edges on the inside

Attach the tassels to the corners of the taped area, then a french knot in the center to finish

Place your cushions on the little chairs by folding it a little so that the back tassels show through the back end of the chair.  Done.