August 17, 2018

furniture peace

nope, not a typo, just a little play on words ;). Since this piece of furniture was the easiest many-part-miniature I ever made. Still had some challenges, but that's okay. I love those anyway and nothing crazy. (update: none of the comments had been published until just now (20th of August) because for some reason I don't get notifications in my e-mail anymore..😠, the mysteries around my blog continue haha!)
the observant visiter or this blog will notice that the right end corner of this photo is a bit off. It's where the mdf-corner this setup is in ends, as well as the wallpaper that's folded over it ;). Since there's still no Oldtique Store, but this is the set-up it it will be in, as in the wallpaper, a wooden floor and the chair will probably be there too.

I love that it's just a bunch of wood I had laying around - old paintstirrers, tonguespatula's, coffeestirrers, wood from an old
waterdamaged Roman blind, very thin mdf, veneer - that with some woodglue, paint and metal wires resulted in this cupboard that doesn't look nearly as cheap as it was materialwise, haha! I encountered a number of things that reminded me I'm not familiar with working with wood at all (or finishing it), but I learned a lot! 😊

  

filled with a selection of my 'antique' miniatures (the chickens and little pig are actually antiques by the way - that's how they were once sold on Etsy anyway - or maybe just old)

common stuff you find in a drawer. Although, pepermint might not be the most common ;)

the drawerpulls I made are after the ones I have on my nightstands and I thought would be perfect to replicate for this.

the small ones above their big counterpart

the round ornament with hole I used for the base I found last year at the fair at the stand of the lovely Elsner von Gronow. It has the small diameter I needed as well as the lovely structure I wanted it to have. A bit bigger than the one my nightstands have, to scale that is, haha, but it's the smallest ones I could find that met my needs and wishes for them.


I need to warn you if you think about visiting her webshop, this is not without risk.. You might end up with a crazy amount in your cart as I have in the past ;). I especially love her filligree stampings from France, they're quite a bit more pricey than other ornaments, but they are absolutely gorgeous!

for contrast below the pull still 'au naturel' and after I dressed it up with a rusty coat(ing). I used my trusty Rust All for that and gave it a little black wash finish for a natural and more realistic colourtone.


this is the last you saw in my previous post 'big in small'. If you like to see some of the photo's before that you can find those here.


next step was to apply paneling to the sides, because I love that on anything. It's such a simple way of adding a bit of character and to me a cupboard like this should definitely have that whether the real one has it or not (the webshop that had this cupboard on their website I used as my example only had front view - or that's the only image I saved, it's been years ;) - so I have no idea what the sides looked like).



with a little colour (far right) it starts to look really nice!

to prevent the drawers from falling out when opening, I made holes in the top of the drawer'construction' (for lack of a better word 😉) en glued the ends of toothpicks in them. I was searching a bit to determine where the holes should be to allow the drawers to close completely and being able to pull them out as far as possible at the same time. The first something I hadn't thought about initially with the first left hole above the right drawer way too much at the front as you can see ;).


the depth of the bottomshelves turned out to be too shallow with the baseboard I decided to add when I was at the point of doing the paneling. The paintstirrers I had for shelves were way too beautiful to replace them with a wider piece of wood, so I decided to extend the depth. Not perfect since I didn't have or could get the type of wood remotely resembling the kind of the shelves, but with the added colouring it works I think.

on the bottomleft the extensions are glued but there's a tiny gap that I filled with woodglue and tiny amounts of filingdust (middle). On the bottomright is after I treated the extensions with tea and linseedoil as I had the shelves. Because the colour was still very different because of the difference in the wood I used my dirty files to lessen the contrast. On the topright the result before the colouring of the extensions, but just to show it makes more sense now. At least I think
The reason I made 'slots' in the bottomframe is because I didn't want to ask my brother who had cut the shelves when I started this cupboard - or someone else - to cut out the corners of the hardwood (!) paintstirrers that are my bottomshelves and I'm not able to do that myself. I figured this is just how this cupboard was build. Well, it actually is, haha!

then after the final coat of pain I only needed to sprayvarnish. Sounded so simple. I had the cupboard ready for that for quite a long while when I was finally able to do that, when summer decided to turn tropcial for a couple of months. Because I live in an apartmentbuilding the fumes travel as it is. With everyone having all the doors and windows open, without any wind and because of the heat itself it would stay really long. Would not have been very nice ;). I have a gasmask I use for spraying, but I'm pretty sure my neighbours don't have that or if they did appreciate the need for it, haha! One weekend some time ago the temperatures finally dropped significantly and it would also be quite stormy, so I could finally do it. But then I messed up... (long story how). Needed to fix that first, but with what I needed to do only made things look much worse. After scraping and sanding that off I needed to fix the color. Which wasn't easy because it wasn't finding the right color, but finding the right combination of them to make it look as natural as possible. Pretty proud of what I was able to do.


but before I could spray again, hoping what would really be the final time, another long heatwave hit.. Last Friday it was finally the kind of weather that allowed me to do that again. So I did, but although it seemed fine before spraying (no matter in what angle I looked at it or with what light), after spraying a layer it showed the damage after all. Not visible without light falling on it fortunately, but with a bit of light it is quite noticable and I think still a bit of a shame. There's other things about this cupboard that didn't turn out not as nice as they were when I dry-fitted, but it's okay. It would have taken a lot of effort to correct and I'd possibly mess up a lot in the process because of what would be needed for that. So I see all of that as part of the learningprocess, just the visible kind :D.

the original and mine next to each other. As you can see I altered a few things to suit my taste and use.






*** ps: does anyone know why I lost ALL of the blogs I followed? I used to have a massive list of wonderful blogs I followed of all of you and many others and recently I discovered that when you go to my profile in the overview of which blogs I follow the ONLY one mentioned is Otterine's, the only non-Blogger blog..., so must be a Blogger-thing. I regrettably haven't been able to visit any blogs in a long time (or just one or two on a rare occassion), but I NEVER unfollowed any of you and would never do that either, so sorry if anyone saw it and thought that.. Weird stuff at times with Blogger. If anyone can shed a light on why this happened or if you experienced the same thing, please let me know in a comment, tnx! ***

19 comments:

  1. Hello Monique! So nice to see a post from you! I adore your cabinet, and most of all the way in which you made it in spite of so many challenges in regard to material, ability to cut, spray painting consciousness, and a disaster to correct! Incredible job, and it just proves that when you have a vision and an idea that won't leave you alone, you can move mountains! Love those handles, and ingenious drawer catch!
    I had the same trouble with Blogger dropping all of my blog roll. I ended up having to manually, over a long period of time, add each blog address rather than employing the "Blogs I Follow" check box. It has been quite a while since this happened, and still I am discovering missing blogs! So frustrating! If you'd like a better explanation or screen shots, you can email me at jodihippler(at)gmail.com.
    Great post!

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  2. Your cabinet turned out beautiful! I love the attention to detail on the drawers and drawer pulls and making sure the wood colors matched on the different wood species. Keep up the good work. - Troy

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  3. Está genial- Me encanta como has hecho los tiradores.

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  4. I love the furniture! The contrast of the warm wood tones against the dark is so pretty! A gorgeous twist on traditional.

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  5. As always Monique your posts are informative and inspiring. I cannot shed any light on the loss of your blogger reading list.
    Thank you for taking so many pics. Look forward to seeing more progress on your oldtique build.
    Regards Janine

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  6. It it beautiful, Monique!

    As for the blogs you followed, I go to the dashboard, then to the "Reading List" and that's where they all show. When they made the change a bit ago I was quite upset thinking I had lost all of my follows, but they are all there, if a bit "hidden"

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  7. Hi Monique! I must say that I am Extremely Impressed by your custom shelf unit!!! The entire unit looks Fabulous and the shelves wide and deep enough to display a variety of objects. I especially love your rusty drawer pulls and the color you've chosen which compliments the natural wood beadboard backing- VERY SMART looking and VERY Well Done! ❤️

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  8. Wow it is beautiful! I love watching your processes, mistakes and all. And the drawer pull came out awesome :)
    As for blogger, I am seeing a list of blogs on your side bar.

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  9. Prachtig gemaakt. Het is gewoon niet te zien dat het 1:12 is!

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  10. Hi Monique! I think your shelves look absolutely Fabulous!!! Your attention to detail always blows me away... the tiny drawer stops!!! And the "rusted" drawer pulls are perfect and who could believe they were not RL size??? And Made by hand???? The overall shape and mix of wood on this cabinet are what make it so perfect for your shop... gracious, old and possibly a little bit renovated but useful and elegant all at once! I love all the items you have on display... I think I am going to LOVE visiting this shop over and over again! It looks wonderful! :):)

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  11. Oh, and I meant to add that the "mistakes" in the finishing only make it look even more realistic! Old pieces of furniture never look "perfect" any more which is why we love them so much! :)

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  12. I need this for my house. Thanks for sharing. I will endeavor to make my own in the future

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  13. Hello Monique,
    What a terrific job you did. It looks gorgeous. I actually like the damage because I feel it makes it look more realistic, in that it looks used like in real life. the color shceme is beautiful and I love your building technique.
    Big hug
    Giac

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  14. Beautiful! Now I have an idea of what to do with these cabinets I have here. By the way, I can see the websites you follow on the right of this site.

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  15. Un resultado fabuloso.
    Me gusta mucho la combinación de colores.
    Un abrazo

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  16. I love your cabinet! I think the English might call it a buffet, and in America a hutch. The drawer handles are genius.
    Over the last two days I received two emails from Blogger asking whether I want to be notified of comments on my blog again. AGAIN?! I never asked them to stop... Anyway, I replied yes to both so let's see what happens now.
    I stopped using Blogger to follow blogs a long while ago, and switched to www.bloglovin.com. I love the site, and it's never given me trouble yet.

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  17. Hi all, for anyone who may read this, thank you so much for all your wonderful replies, I truly appreciate it. Also the ones regarding the blogs I follow that mysteriously disappeared. Due to all kinds of circumstances I've never been able to reply to comments anymore (which I always liked and still would have loved doing), I hope and trust you understand it's not out of desinterest or disrespectfulness. It took all (and more) to work on and publish one more thing before I've been m.i.a. for over a year. Everything on and my entire blog itself has always been about impossible choices and clever solutions to be able to do anything at all due to extreme healthreasons. I totally get it people stop following, but anyone who might end up here and read this, maybe it helps. Thank you so much for your incredible kindness and support and take care, Monique

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