This room was my obsession from start to finish. It was the first room I actually purchased a good bit of the materials used, though I also used a lot of recycled stuff. It's probably the most expensive room. Many late nights were spent on this endeavor, and every minute was worth it. It dethroned Jasmine's room as my favorite.
The first part of my obsessive vision was that it had to have columns. My mild addiction to Good and Plenty was very helpful with this. My children's fondness for Mike and Ike's didn't hurt either. After drawing the arch for the columns on one box, I used the cutout as a template for the rest. I put packing peanuts into all the box cavities to provide substance and strength.
I glued all the arches to the walls and stuffed the spaces in between the boxes with packing peanutes and cut portions of toilet paper roles to form the end columns. Then I painted a base coat of blue on the walls and floor.
I wanted a smooth and firm surface for the spaces above the columns and over the gaps so I cut up a cereal box and covered those areas. I also put down the paper I used for the flooring. It just looked like a ancient tile floor to me. I laid out the paper I used for the walls. There was a little lip as the paper went from the candy box to the primary box but I was comfortable with that from a design perspective. The interior walls of the arches also had to be smoothed out, I used long strips from the sides of other candy boxes to provide the smooth surface.
I also fitted the toilet paper rolls I planned to use for the columns--it wasn't as simple as cutting them open, they had
Then I finished papering the walls that would be exposed after the columns went up.
The next task was all sorts of tedious but the results were pretty gorgeous, if I do says so myself. Each bead was put on individually. Tacky Glue is the bomb. I used a straight pin to help me pick up and place the beads. The goal was to turn the beads so that the holes didn't show, once the column was completed. I used glass beads from the craft section a walmart because they were dramatically less expensive than anywhere else. It is not my intention to spend a fortune on this castle. Had that been the plan, I could have bought something pre-fab and just decorated it..
Before putting the columns on I papered the inside walls of the arches with the same paper I'd used for the floor. I started out trying to string the beads on for ceiling to make a particular pattern but it didn't go quite as easily as planned--the beads kept slipping off the string. But in the end I got the look I was going for an organic looking patternless sort of pattern.
Then I needed to address the paper lines. Not so pretty and I had to figure out what to do do about the open tops of the columns. Lots of little wooden craft sticks got a bronze paint job.
Half moons of wider wood slates were cut to fit the tops of the columns, the edges were lined with beads. The white spaces around the arches got painted with the bronze, as did a strip of wall above the door. Little wood trim pieces were glued on and then decorative beads hid any join and added interest.
I wasn't satisfied with the space. Turkish baths have even more to see, usually, I made little cool water fountains with foam beads cut in half and more fancy beads (from a rather inexpensive pack of plastic jewelry making sets I got at walmart and ended up using in several parts of this room as well as many others.) I tried using hot glue for the sinks and burned my fingers pretty badly, so I ended up using tacky glue, which was the better choice.
The bath started out as a deli meat container. I papered the outside of the tub with a paper similar to the one I used for the floor. To keep things looking neat, I cut a piece to fit the raised part of the bottom of the container and modge podged that to the inside of the bath. Then I covered the outsid with bronze painted wooden slates. I painted the edges of the tub with bronze paint and added fancy leaf shaped beads (from the kit mentioned above) along the top edge. I used other beads from the kit to be faucets and the bottom was trimmed with still more beads (some holes show, but the girls don't seem to care).
I didn't like the end result of the way the bronzed wooden slats looked. So I mixed modge podge with some very fine glitter and painted the mixture, thickly, onto the wooden slats.
I also painted the interior lip in the plastic container--I just liked the way that looked better.
The door got painted bronze as well. A doorknob made from a broken ring finished off the door to what will one day be a shower and dressing room.
This became my favorite room for a long time. I want to 3.5" high so I can hang out in here. Of course, there is no running water so it wouldn't really be that cool. My girls have been warned that it will ruin the room and the castle for them to try to fill the bath with real water.
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