The Castle Project Chapter 10: The Dining Room and Sitting Room

The dining room and the sitting room were planned for the first wing of the castle and the walls, floors and ceilings went in about the same time as the creation of the ballroom.  They started life as Girl Scout cookie cases.  

I was especially pleased with the ceiling in the dining room, gold vellum over pink paper. 

 The ceiling in the sitting room is textured and shiny.  All the paper and stickers came out of my extensive stash of scrapbooking materials.  The rug starts out as thick water color paper, to give it depth and presence.  When I get back to scrapbooking again, I may need to go shopping, but for now I'm putting my inventory to good use.

 As the project continues, I get better at dealing with openings between rooms.  In this case, I made the hole primarily to keep the spaces from being too dark.  We'll call it a "magic" wall, instead of an opening between rooms.

The rooms sat empty for a good while.  I started to work on other rooms.  I had the idea that I should just do the background first and worry about furniture later, but after working on a few bedrooms, it became clear that I furniture was pretty pivotal to the whole design process.

I had a pile of silk, cashmere and silk blend sweaters and tops that were ruined from spills, tears or moths.  I finally discovered why I had been saving them.  They were turned into a pile of luxurious scraps, fit for many uses, particularly furniture coverings.  

 My daughter gets Capri Sun Super V in her lunch.  If you open the package the way it's supposed to be opened, instead of just ripping it open, you get this pretty sturdy and nicely shaped wedge shaped piece.  Or, as I saw it, the foundation for a sofa.

 The larger, smooth portion became the back.

 The sides got a nice trim to form arms.

 After I made the first arm, I used the scrap to make the pattern for the other side.

 There was the start of my sofa.  I made one more the exact same way.

I used masking tape to cover the entire sofa, creating a better painting surface.  Then I created cushions using some cashmere sweater scraps.  The fabric as wrapped around a shaped piece of cardboard.  I cut feet out of cardboard, painted the taped cardboard dark brown and then trimmed with gold paint.  I forgot to document this part.   Hot glue was used.  Fingers were burned (I may not have fingerprints by the time this project is complete).

The next thing to tackle was the dining room.  I was feeling stuck but then happened upon an idea, inspired by images of table tops.  I enlisted my sister's boyfriend to come up with a good way to set up a foundation that would support the image that I found.  Using cardboard and wooden craft sticks he created a foundation.  Then he and my sister left and I put his start into the dining room.  I thought it was a little too small.  I printed off a larger image, and cut another cardboard top.  Then I taped it all up.  But the legs weren't quite right.  They were too plain.  So I grabbed some pipe cleaners and tape and started to work on it.

 After fancying up the legs, it got a paint job.

Then it got a layer of gold paint along the edges and feet, with a dry brush of gold on the legs to better go with the table top image.  Then the image was applied.  

The finished table looked awesome in the dining room.  

Now it was time for the chairs.  A while ago, I'd started making chairs using cups from an egg carton.  Once I had the table, I decide those chairs had to be used for something else.  They just didn't work for the table. So new chairs had to be constructed.
My new favorite building material, wooden craft sticks, came to save the day.  I already had a bunch of them because of some craft project I did with the girls for Christmas or something.  I played a little bit with dimensions that would work for the table and the dolls.
Then the painting began.  First a dark coat of brown and then rubbing down with gold.  I wanted the brown to show through a little bit, but not too much.

 Chair seats were fashioned with the tongue depressor sized craft sticks, cut to size and simply taped.  The cushion was stuffed with squares of my sweater scraps.  Then a larger square of fabric was hot glued down with a another "board" across the bottom (perpendicular to the other boards).

 Then I made the backs of the chairs with the curved part of a tongue depressor sized craft stick.  I had a small stack of fabric cut to size.  Then a larger piece was wrapped around the chair back.

 Next I set up the full back of the chairs.  The bottoms had been snipped of the popsicle sized craft sticks.  A tongue depressor sized back piece was hot glued between two of the thin wood sticks.  Then the cushioned chair back was hot glued to the back.

Then all the rest of the chair components were gathered to make each chair.  The assembled back, the seat cushion, two front legs and four braces.  

The front legs were hot glued to the seat cushion, then the front brace was glued on--it adds stability and covers the unfinished looking area of the cushion.  Next the seat and front legs are hot glued to the back of the chair.  At this point we have chair but a rather fragile one.

So I added braces to the other three sided of the chair. 

 All twelve of them.  To create a little more detail, I used finger nail decals to the back parts of the chair and painted over them to add a tiny bit of detail to the chairs.

I think they look great with the table.  Exactly the look I was trying to get.

 All twelve chairs fit, even with dolls in it. But it's a little bit crowded.

The girls approved of the new furniture.  So did the dolls.

I, however wasn't quite satisfied.  For the first time in the project, I went out and bought something specifically for the castle besides adhesives.  

I purchased candelabrum for the dining room.  I also bought some dishes, a lobster platter, some bread and cheese and some china.  Later, the girls made some fruits out of PlayDoh we let dry out. I glued the candelabrum to the table to keep them from getting destroyed.  The dishes and food is getting played with all over the place, whether I like it or not.  

 I made a coffee table out a wooden shape I'd bought and added some beads to the bottom for feet.  I, also, couldn't resist the pewter tea set.  

I think the sitting room needs a little something more, like lighting and perhaps some art or portraits on the walls.  I just haven't come up with the right inspiration.  I'll figure it out.  Meanwhile, the girls happily play with both rooms.