The Den of Slack

emilymorganti.com

Page 117 of 232

L-shaped desk for Rosedale home office

When I built the Rosedale, I planned to make the smaller room on the first floor into a laundry room, but when I pulled out the house at the beginning of this year to do the finishing touches, I decided to turn it into a home office instead. I’d originally intended to have two bathrooms upstairs but realized the one on the third floor (adjoining the master bedroom) was too small and strangely shaped to work out, so I’m going to put the laundry in there instead.

There’s not really a lot of selection when it comes to half scale office furniture (or, let’s be honest, half scale *anything*), so I got creative. I used the leftover top cabinet pieces from my Rowhouse kitchen bash to make an L-shaped desk. First I cut the smaller piece to fit under the window.

I measured the larger piece to fit along the other wall and cut the edge that meets the smaller piece at a 45-degree angle. Since the two pieces are not the same depth, they don’t meet up exactly in the back corner.

With the pieces overlapped, I drew a line on the short piece so I’d know where to cut.

I glued the two desktop pieces together and made sure they fit, since my walls aren’t exactly square.

Continue reading

3D printed furniture in half scale, from Pretty Small Things and Shapeways

As 3D printing is becoming more common, I’m tempted to buy a 3D printer for use in minis, but the technology is too new (and too over my head) for me to feel comfortable being a guinea pig early adopter. I recently bought some 1:24 scale 3D printed furniture from Pretty Small Things and Shapeways, two stores that do the printing for you, and thought I’d post about the experience for miniaturists who are on the fence.

I placed my Pretty Small Things order around Thanksgiving, when they had a Black Friday sale — discounted prices plus free shipping plus a grab bag if you spent over a certain amount. It looks like their half scale inventory is still discounted, which I hope doesn’t mean they’re trying to clear it out for good.

I bought six “Moderne Dog Bone” chairs, a console table, and a little stool. They’re all made from relatively smooth white plastic.


The grab bag included six tables made from a rougher, off-white plastic. I think these were seconds or prototypes the seller was trying to get rid of. Right after I opened the package, I dropped the coffee table on the floor and one of the legs broke off, but I was able to glue it back on. Lesson learned, though — these are delicate, especially when dropped on a hardwood floor!

Continue reading

Handmade pot rack and kitchen island in half scale

After finishing up the Rosedale kitchen, I felt like it was missing something. The space is fairly compact but I thought I could get away with a small island up against the room divider, with a hanging pot rack above it. I looked online for half scale pot racks and could only find very pricey handmade ones, so I decided to make my own at a fraction of the price.

Here are the parts I used, from the jewelry area of Michaels:

I started by looking for a metal embellishment to serve as the rack itself. I almost went with a black wrought-iron looking thing, then happened across this circular pendant. I can’t find any evidence of its existence online to link to, but the tag says it’s a ShortCuts “Metal Connector” from Blue Moon Beads. It’s about 1-1/8″ in diameter and if I’m looking at the right item on the receipt it cost $3.99. I bought the chain and the eye pins, which were $3.99 and $2.99 respectively, in the same antique gold color to match the pendent.

The pendent had four jump rings attached to it. I probably should have bought smaller jump rings and a smaller chain, to be more in scale, but I didn’t want to buy a whole new set of jump rings when I only needed the four that came with it. I opted for this chain rather than a smaller one so the jump rings would fit through it. I positioned three of the jump rings evenly around the pendent and connected chain pieces to those, then to the fourth jump ring to hang from.

Next came the hooks. I bought the eye pins as opposed to plain wire so I could neatly make them into hooks by opening up the circular part with needle-nose pliers.

I then cut the wire down and folded the top over the edge of the pendent.

Each hook looks a little different but I think it goes with the “hand forged” look of the metal. The whole thing is kind of bohemian and artsy.

Hanging the pot rack from the ceiling was the hardest part! I didn’t have any very small eyelet screws and even if I had, they wouldn’t have been the right color of metal. I tried poking a hole in the ceiling with the electricity pilot tool and then shoving a hook (made from the same wire as the hooks on the pot rack) into the ceiling, but couldn’t get the pilot tool to make a good enough hole for it to “take”.

Finally, after a lot of wrestling, I managed to screw in the smallest eyelet screw I had, just enough to make a decent hole in the ceiling. I then dabbed the tip of my hook in super glue and shoved it into the hole. So far it’s staying put.

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 The Den of Slack

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑