Grandpa Lee's Miniatures
How to furnish The last and most fun task is finally at hand; window treatments and furnishings. By now you've pretty much determined how each room will eventually look by your earlier choice of lighting and wallpaper so the very next thing we have to do is decide how we want the window decorations to look. However, before jumping into this next to last project you may find yourself greatly tempted to mount hanging ceiling
lights and wall sconces. I don't blame you; we're so close now, but resist the urge because you will quickly find that reaching around them to work on the windows behind will make you use many bad words.
Who does windows anymore? We do, but I can think of better ways to have fun. First of all a bit of research is necessary. Start by designing your own window treatments or at least copying an idea from furniture flyers, catalogs, home decorating magazines, model homes, your own house etc., all the while keeping the theme of the room in mind. Then pick compatible colors in appropriate fabrics for all intended shears and drapes. Hint You can find any kind of fabric you want in the remnant bin at the local fabric store for a dollar or two a yard. Curtain material is OK as is, but be careful not to pick too thick a fabric for drapes--thick materials don't scale well (they will look bulky and unnatural like the suits on Ken dolls), thick fabric is also hard to pleat and otherwise hard to work with for our purposes.
Do I need a little bitty sewing machine? No you don't, but you do have to keep raw fabric edges from unraveling, and you do have to create realistic looking pleats and a natural looking "hang" on every single panel so here at least are some reasonable ways to do all this.
First, scale out the panels for the intended window(s) and cut them all out nice and square using a rolling fabric cutter if possible or at least really sharp scissors. Handle these panels as little and as carefully as possible to minimize unraveling of the still raw edges. Carefully trim random stringers with scissors now or better yet after sealing the edges.
Next, pour clear water based "paint" (Believe me there really is such a thing) to a depth of about an inch into as long and thin a resealable plastic container as you can find. Several days will pass before all the panels for all the windows are finally edge sealed, and being able to reseal this container spares you of the need to transfer what we are now calling our "edge sealer" back and forth into the can after every use. I use throw away plastic sandwich boxes that accommodate panels of up to 7" per edge. 7"x7" is about the largest size panel you'll want to handle anyway.
Then, Finger clamp a fabric edge between two parallel pieces of thin scrap wood the full length of the panel with about 1/4" of fabric protruding along the edge of the wood and then uniformly dip the exposed fabric edge into the liquid sealer no deeper than necessary to be sure the full length of the fabric is wet to a depth of no more than about 1mm or 1/16". Carefully suspend this untouched wet edge in air until it dries. Repeat on every exposed
edge and you can then safely handle every panel forever after without the lingering fear of having any edge unravel. Hint Once dry you can barely see the residual clear "paint" line along the edges as done on all the windows here, but for truly dramatic effects you can dip the edges in bright paints to create contrasting colored borders.
Pleats & Puffs Pour a bottle of water based fabric stiffener from the craft store into a similar container. After some experimentation you may want to cut it a bit with water to suit your own taste. Only this time submerge the whole edge sealed panel and squeegee it back out through your fingers. Pleat it at once while still wet with a hot mini iron (yes, it's also from the same craft store) and clamp the pleated stack between our now famously useful pieces of scrap wood until dry. Hint The iron face will want to gum up frequently from an accumulation of melted starch and edge sealer. Keep a thoroughly wet towel handy and vigorously wipe off the face of the iron when you feel it start to drag. Pleated panels will want to stick together after drying, but just pull them apart and reform the dry pleats in your fingers. Dampen a bit if necessary and they'll stay that way thereafter. Puffs as shown below are easier-just gather one edge of a narrow panel.
Hanging There's a lot you can do here, especially if you want a cornice or valance, but in this model which has all exposed fabrics I simply bent a coat hanger at both ends to the desired length. The legs at each end should extend about 1/2". Glue the rear curtain panel to the back of this formed curtain rod and the front panel to the
front of the same rod with quick setting fabric glue. You may have to hold everything in place with your fingers for up to a minute or so until it sets up. Let it dry completely and then just press the whole assembly into close fitting holes (don't pierce the wall) you drilled for each of the short bent "legs". This method makes it easy to eventually redecorate and does minimum insult to the wall you already papered so lovingly.
Let's call it a day Nothing to do now but put some furniture in and glue or plug in the lights--the fun part at last. Hint Most lamps, and all those intended to hang from the ceiling come with little dinky double face mounting tape. It never holds; especially on wall sconces so figure on extra gluing. The quick dry fabric glue you already have usually works well for this. Hanging ceiling lights can be put in with a standard plug, but as this does not look natural I solder only the plug studs less the plastic housing to the light wires and plug them into outlet holes without a cover plate for a more subtle look. Incidentally an effective outlet cover plate as seen under the wine rack in the last photo below is easily made from scraps of white or brown wallpaper.
Congratulations to anybody who's managed to stick it out this far, and if so, now that you're an old pro, can you remember any of our opening comments from the dim past? You know, the stuff about wanting to help the average kit buyer make a presentable model for minimum cost blah blah. Well let me tell you, no single item in this entire web site except for the kit costs more than a couple of bucks. Granted in the aggregate it all adds up to two or three hundred dollars including the kit and also assumes of course that all your labor is free, but that's still a far cry from the $10,000.00 inlaid coffee table (about the same size as the one shown here) that I saw in a collector's magazine recently.
Ready for the Smithsonian? Granted, we're a couple of nails short of museum quality, but really not that far off considering the time, cost and materials we've allowed ourselves to work with. Still have any lingering doubts? A comparison of our results to the very same factory
built kit on display in the store should help put your mind at ease, and the best part of course is that the world doesn't end if you do happen to drop it. A little glue and some clamps and you're back in business. Let the kids enjoy it. Let them touch it, move the furniture around and fantasize a bit. Call it character building. It can't hurt; especially if they had the pleasure of helping in its construction. The skills they learn here will last a lifetime. So, best of luck in your project. Don't get discouraged and don't burn out. Send me an e-mail if you're feeling down and out-or better yet send me an e-photo as soon as you finish your next great project.
e-mail grandpalee@charter.net Grandpalee