Final Box - The Music Room

 Good grief three years gap between posts must be some sort of record.  I thought I had finished with minis but felt bad about the amount of stuff I still have and there were some nice pieces I wanted to keep so I decided I would have one last hurrah.

I sorted out everything I would need to complete the music room and packed up everything else - a complete car load -  to donate to the charity table at the next Miniatura.  It was very hard letting go of some things.  Not meaning to be depressing but at almost eighty now I am very aware of the idea of 'Swedish death clearing' ….  Basically not wanting to leave a load of clobber for some poor soul to have to sort out when I pop my clogs.  For any of us who have done that chore for someone, we know how upsetting and how tiring a job that can be.

So here we go......

I glued the box pieces together.  I use fast grab wood glue and a few small spots of superglue to try to get each side attached quickly.  Making sure it is all square on is the biggest challenge.

I have searched and searched a gazillion wallpapers for something I would like for the music room but came up with nothing.  On the basis that in my imagination this, like my other boxes, is a large room in a Georgian house still lived in now I decided to stick to the simplest option.  I scouted out a Georgian green and painted it. It takes two coats, maybe a third if you are a belt braces sort of person.

I began by masking taping the areas where skirting boards and coving will go.  Wood glue works best when it is gluing wood to wood.  It is designed to raise fibres in the wood which then interlock with the piece being attached making a strong bond.  Gluing trims to paint works but just not as well as wood to wood.

I also tape the front edge of the box so no paint goes on that edge.  It really is unavoidable of it’s not masked.

After years of different paints I found the absolute best.  You can get a good size sample tin of Valspar for £4.25 from B and Q and you can have any colour under the sun made up for you; they will even colour match from a sample or object.  They have literally thousands of colour cards in their display so it would be impossible not to get just what you want.  They can be made up in Matt or Satin.  Satin is ideal to replicate a gloss finish from real world as that high shine needs to be reduced to scaled down like everything else.  

I use Tidy White Matt for ceilings and coving and Tidy White satin for skirting boards and chair rails etc.  The green used here was a match to an old paint sample I had in my paint drawer so it doesn’t have a name.

I have a ton of brushes but always end up returning to a cheap foam thingy which has been used over and over again and shows no sign of wear.  They are cheap enough to just throw away after each bit of work but I am a cheapskate with some things and I love to think I have eked something out.