Once the bar and the patrons are in place, the Blackbird Bar roombox won’t have a ton of free space, but there is an open area near the door where I wanted to put something. I thought about a coat rack or a free-standing ATM, but both of those seemed kinda boring. So how about a jukebox?

Even thought it’s way easier to find things in 1:12 scale than I’m used to in half scale, the jukebox pickings were slim. Aztec makes one in resin but it’s pretty sloppy, especially retailing at $25. I found some very detailed reproductions of real jukeboxes on eBay but they were also pricey for what’s supposed to be a quick side project. (I’ve already spent an obscene amount of money on resin dolls…) As I started looking at the dimensions I realized that the “real” miniature jukeboxes were much too deep, anyway. I only have about 1″ of space behind the doorway. Anything bigger than that will stick out and block the door.

So I turned to Christmas ornaments. I looked at Hallmark ornaments first since those tend to work well in miniature settings (I used a bunch in my breadbox roombox). Hallmark has made several jukeboxes over the years but they’re all very Christmas themed, which won’t work for the bar. I ended up buying “At the Hop,” which was made by Enesco in 1987. There are a bunch of them on eBay – I got mine (plus another random ornament I didn’t actually want) for $3.95 plus shipping.

I picked this one because of the dimensions (.75″ deep, 4.5″ tall) and because it’s not super Christmasy. It’s battery operated, and lights up and plays music when you flip the switch at the bottom. I like the lights but the music is beyond obnoxious. I had hoped to light it separately using a bulb, like I did with the Hallmark stove in the breadbox, but I couldn’t see an easy way to take the back off to fiddle with the innards.

While it fits well in the space behind the door, there are several things I don’t like about this ornament. The red plastic around the back and at the base looks fake, as do the cardboard records (plus they’re crooked!) Also, the design with the silver outline seems to want to be stained glass — it’s okay as it is, but it could look a lot better. Let the bashing begin!

I started by painting the base black.

Next I cut a strip of micro veneer to cover up the red plastic. This is the same stuff I used for floors in the Victorianna and Thatched Cottage.

The micro veneer is flexible and sticky-backed, so it was easy to attach over the rounded edge.

Looking better already! A real jukebox would be about twice as deep, but since it’s obscured by the door I think I can get away with it.

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The bar interior is on hold until I have everything I need to do the electricity, so I moved on to the outside. A while ago I got some Magic Brick and Magic Slate for a good price. (I mostly do half scale projects, so part of the fun of doing a 1:12 roombox is using up all these supplies I’ve picked up on the cheap!) I decided to use the Magic Slate for the bar’s patio and the brick on the exterior walls.

The patio walls have pegs at the bottom that fit into pre-drilled holes in the patio. These walls need to be glued to the patio, and then that assembly gets glued to the front facade of the bar.

First I needed to take care of a problem with the walls not quite fitting. I think the holes that the patio walls fit into were slightly off, which prevented these two walls from meeting squarely.

To fix this, I drilled into the hole with a drill bit the next size up, so there’s a little bit of slop when the peg fits into the hole. This fixed the problem with the top peg.

Magic Slate and Magic Brick come with mortar line templates that you lay down over the surface. Then you coat the surface with a stucco-like material and pull up the template, which leaves behind a slate or brick pattern in the stucco. I painted the patio floor gray — this will be the mortar color between the slate pavers. (I also painted the front of the bar. None of this is glued together yet.)

I drew around the walls so I’d know where they go. I don’t want to get any of the slate material in these areas.

I covered these areas with masking tape.

Next I lay down the Magic Slate template.

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I bought the bar that will go inside the Blackbird Bar for $15 at a miniature flea market. It has a label on the back that says “Handmade by the Mini Wizards” – I don’t know who these wizards are and haven’t been able to find any details online. If you’ve heard of them, please tell me!

The bar needs shelves to hold the glasses and liquor bottles, but first I had to give the thing a good dusting and make some minor repairs. The trim around the mirrors had come unglued and was only being held in by silver tape on the backs.

I folded the trim pieces back into place and used tacky glue to resecure them to the mirrors.

The wood was kind of dingy and I wanted to darken it up, but the bar is polyurethaned and has a lot of corners and hard-to-reach spots, so painting or re-staining seemed like it would be difficult. I had this jar of Old English scratch cleaner left over from my old house, where we used it to cover up scratches in our kitchen cabinets. A coat of this helped spruce it up.

This wine rack was disconnected when I bought the bar, and I was torn about whether to glue it back in. I like the idea of glasses hanging down off the wine rack, but it takes up a lot of space and doesn’t have the elegance I’m going for.

I started thinking about adding a wine rack to one of the shelves under the bar and went as far to search for one with the right dimensions, when it occurred to me that I could cut down the one that came with it.

A perfect fit! In this location you’ll still be able to see it, without having it dominate one whole side of the bar.

I’m planning to put bottles on the large side and glassware and the cash register on the small side. The trim is notched to accommodate the top of the wine rack, so I couldn’t just remove that piece. I thought about hanging a television off of it.

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