Tree painting

During Christmas Christmas we had our tree in the living room between the door and TV. This seemed an ideal position and when we removed it in January the wall seemed empty. There was an open space that made the room look odd and we needed something to fill it.

After I was done with Carina's closet doors (see them here). I had some wood and cloth left, and thought that I can use it to create a painting of a tree to give the room a better feel. The main problem being however that I have never painted anything worth displaying and I started this project with the idea that I can burn it if I got negative reviews...

At the end it turned out OK and, at least, it fills the space on the wall. Following is a video of the painting - note that it is sped up to only a few minutes since a 7  hour process may be a bit tedious to watch.

Painting done and in place

The wood, however, is just plain pine that was stained and sanded repeatedly. Below is a series of pictures of the changes.

2x4 cm pine - cut to lenght

Everything going to plan - thus far

Staining of wood

Colour steps: A small block of original coloured pine with a stained piece below it (2 coats with sanding between). A the bottom the final product after sanding and lots of polishing with oil. 

The assembly of the frame and the adding of the cloth was done in a similar fashion as the closet doors:

Home made corner pieces from scrap aluminium

Corner piece added temporarily while glue is drying - also some branding added

Frame done

Adding the cloth after cutting it to the correct size and ironing it

Bottom section stapled down - I used cardboard strips to roll the cloth onto and keep it straight, see post on closet doors for details

All sides done

Corner pieces added to support frame

Frame completed and cloth added

I am not sure how common it is to fame the cloth prior to painting but this is the way I did it. The last part was thus to paint the tree and again I turned to the interwebs for some inspiration. After looking many many tree pictures I found one that I liked. After a bit of photo-shopping I enlarged it and used it as a backing to help get the layout correct when painting.

Testing the figure layout in the frame (note this was prior to adding the cloth)

Picture stick to table and covered with clingfilm

Home made "tripod" to film the painting process

Working from several versions to get the layout correct - but with loads of improvisation

Final product prior to hanging.

The wall, obviously, seem less empty with the painting (There is still one large open area that makes the whole living room feel unbalanced. Here however we will place the 5000 piece puzzle once it is finished but more about this monstrous project later). I enjoyed this project but do not think I will quit my job to become a painter. I will however try to do more woodwork and will post more on this as it happens...

R&C

Book binding

With all the projects that I have in mind and all the things that I need to remember to do I needed a notebook. I thought I will try my hand at binding a book and here is the result:

Denim bound book

Notes for next project

Clean pages

I am reasonably pleased with the outcome although I had to make some serious adjustments halfway through the process (see later). Below are the steps I followed to produce a denim bound book.

Main materials of a book

Folding each page

Clamping pages and adding glue - a thin cloth is also added

The casing of this book is made by cardboard. I used two pieces glued together at an angle (around 10 degree offset). This  is to provide a bit more strength as this cardboard bend much easier in one dimension - now not possible anymore.

Gluing cardboard pieces

Getting sizes for the casing

All the elements for the book

Casing done

Book without pages

Gluing the pages in

At this stage I found a mistake. After the pages was glued to the inside and the front and back pages were glued to the case the spine was a bit too wide. I thought this was how it was supposed to be but apparently it is not. I thus removed the text block (all the pages glued togehter) and added more pages - in effect doubling the amount of pages.

Case where text block was removed

After this things worked much better.

Second round of finishing everything

Final product - still slightly wet

I am impressed with the general feel and look of the book and will definitely do more book binding. For my next book I am going to use leather and wood and have an idea that, I think, will make it quite unique. I will post it once it is done ... or the attempt if it turns out to be a mere "experiment".

R&C

DIY Closet Doors

One of the reasons we moved into a house was to have a bit more space to make stuff. Conversely, with a house comes many reasons to make things and fix various things. Thus, one of the first things we needed to do was to make doors for Carina's closet in the bedroom. Below are before and after pictures:

Before

After

The closet is not more than a rustic shelf space and a bit of space to hang clothes and the previous owners had a curtain rail extending into this area which enabled them to "close" the closet. We felt that a curtain from the ceiling this large made the room feel smaller. This left us with an open closet which is not very nice to have. My first major thing to build thus became the doors to the bedroom closet.

I thus set out to make something simple, lightweight and as quick as possible. The rest of the post will be several pictures relating the construction process.

After measuring the closet we set out to buy some wood and cloth. The wood is simple 2x4cm pine that were over 2 meters long that we bought at Bauhaus. We ordered some cheap white cloth online (with some felt to use for building a puzzle on - more about this in the future).

Wood to construct door frames

The door frames were constructed by screwing in the wood to a l-shaped metal corner joiner. Wooden beams for support and some aesthetics where added a bit lower.

Door frames after construction and sanding

I painted all the doors white with some paint left by the previous owners (I think our ceiling is painted with this).

Painted door hanging to dry

All doors painted

Spot the ferret carved into the wood.

When the cloth arrived I set out to wash, dry, measure and cut it for each frame. 

Fitting the cloth

To help with getting the cloth fitted straight and creating a hidden seam I needed something to role the edges into. Below is a simple jig to quickly cut cardboard strips of exactly the same width.

Strip cutting jig

I rolled the cloth edge twice in around the cardboard strip and stapled it into the frame. Carina was a great help here.

Fitting the cloth on a more permanent basis

Front of completed door

I decided before starting this project that I should use the lights within the closet to make the doors a bit less boring. The idea was thus to paint something on the cloth and have the back-light on to create a shadow picture. I found a picture on the interwebs that I liked adapted it for this project.

Sketch of the picture I wanted to use

Scaled up and printed

The cloth is quite transparent. I stuck the picture sections to the table and with the doors on top it was still easy to see the outline of the picture.

Sticking the picture to the table and covering with clingfilm

Gathering paint on a specialized paint holder and set to work panting each door.

Paint scooping

Palette...?

Painting on the backside of the door

First door done

Touching up some details

Painting done

The only thing left to do was to add doorknobs, hinges and magnetic latches.

Last additions

We hung the doors and reasonably happy with the result. The pine is not 100% straight but neither is the closet. The I had to make some adjustments to get everything to fit. The right side of the closet also lack a beam and this leaves a slight gap. I will add the beam to the closet in the future to make it a bit neater.

Doors with light from front

Doors with light from back

Overall the doors function as they should.

R&C