PROJECT: Making a Doll Armoire out of a Jewelry Armoire

I can't seem to stop buying jewelry armoires from my local "antique" (read: junk) shop.  They come cheap, too: $8 for small ones, $12 for large ones, $15 for the best ones.  That's pennies to the dollar compared to what real doll armoires cost.  They aren't outfitted for dolls though but the potential is there so I keep buying them. (I know you can all relate to my OCD tendencies)  They have been stacking up in my doll room and I have finally decided to figure out how to convert them.

Let's get started.  Here's what you need for this project:

1) jewelry armoire
2) wire clothes hanger
3) small screwdriver set (I got this one at The Dollar Tree for...$1)
4) wire cutters

and you may need:

5) small wooden spools, found at Michael's in the wood craft aisle.  Here's a close-up:

That's a pretty small list of supplies!  Here's a jewelry armoire I bought at said shop for $8:

It's just the right height for Poppy Parker.  I know this is supposed to be about Evangeline but Evangeline's official armoire is too big for my attic scene so I need to make some of my own.  Evangeline's backstory says that she lives in an attic filled with armoires filled with old clothing.  You could just as easily get a larger jewelry armoire and do the same thing for Evangeline.   In fact, I have several that will work for EG but I am practicing on this one for Poppy first.   Anyway, the inside of these armoires usually look like some version of this:

They have little spin-y things that spin around and you hang your necklaces on them:

You need to remove these first.  This is easily done.  Put your thumb and index finger at the bottom of the spin-y thing and push it up.  This will expose a little plastic knob that is holding it in place.  Use the wire cutters or a strong pair of scissors to cut off the knob and then the spin-y thing will just fall off.  Once the spin-y thing is gone you will be left with the vertical rod that it was attached to.  It will look like this:

The little rods are held in by screws.  Use a small screwdriver set to easily remove them.   Next, take your wire cutters and your wire hanger.  Hold the long straight part of the hanger up to the armoire.  You want to cut the wire hanger ever so slightly larger (like 1/16 of an inch) than the width of the inside of the armoire.  Using your wire cutters, make like you're going to snip the piece of hanger at one end.  You'll never be able to cut through a hanger with normal wire cutters but just keep squeezing as hard as you can.  After you have squeezed hard enough to have cut little notches in the hanger you should be able to snap the piece of hanger off.  Do this for both ends and you will have created your clothing rod.

Most of these jewelry armoires are lined with velvet and that's good because then you can just push the rod into place and the velvet gives the rod something to hold on to.  In other words,  you don't need any glue, screws or other hardware.  Just be sure to cut the piece of hanger ever so slightly larger.  I did it by holding the hanger up to the armoire to get the correct size, I did not use a ruler for this project at all.  This project took about 5 minutes.  Here's a pic of Poppy's new armoire:

The little earring dividers on the bottom make perfect storage for gloves, purses, and shoes!  I have about 6 more of these things to go.  I will post pics of them in later posts!  By the way, I have seen armoires like this at Walmart, Target, yard sales, everywhere!

NOTE: If your armoire is smooth wood or glass inside then that is where the mini spools come in.  Paint the spools if you wish to make them a more appropriate color or stain.  Glue one of them into the armoire where the clothing rod will meet the armoire wall.  Once it is dry insert the piece of wire hanger into the hole in the spool.  Then slip the other spool over the other end of the piece of wire hanger and then glue that spool to the opposite armoire wall.  Once that dries, you're set!

Building the Walls

I'm very happy with the progress I made over the long weekend.  With the floors finished the next thing I did was create the door.  The question I get asked most often on my dioramas is "how did you make the door?" Well, I take the doll I am making a diorama for and go to Michael's or AC Moore and walk up and down the frame aisle until I find the correct scale "door."   Here is a picture of the finished door next to an identical frame that I used:

  Wait for Michael's to have a 50% off frames weekly special.  This frame retails for $40, it was 50% off on weekly special and I had a coupon for an additional 20% so I got them for $16.  When making a door out of a frame all you have to do is rearrange it.  Remove the cardboard backing, the matte, and the glass from the frame.  Put the matte in first, then the paper, then the cardboard backing, then the glass and then close it up.  You have to put everything back so it doesn't jiggle around but you want the matte up front to give you that paneled-door look.  I then spray painted it with a brown gloss spray paint and used scrapbooking doo-dads for the knob and keyhole.  I then glued it to the wall where I wanted it.  Obviously this trick doesn't work if you need a working door.  Well, I suppose there must be a way but that's to be figured out another day.  Hmmmm....I wonder....

I then moved on to the wall boards.   I used 4" wide balsa planks and cut them in half longways.  This is in contrast to the floorboards which were made from 3" wide balsa before being cut in half longways.  So each wall board is 2" wide and each floor board is 1.5" wide.  This contrast makes it more visually appealing and also more realistic.  The wall boards in the attic in my house are 12 inches wide and the floor boards are 8 inches wide so the ratio is good.  

Two people emailed me and told me I was nuts for making wall boards and that the bare walls, spray painted walnut, looked great as they were.  So this next pic is for them.  Really, look at the difference that a relatively small additional dollar investment and a, well, okay, HUGE, time investment makes:

I won't lie, these individual boards are a labor of love.  Each board has to be cut individually, spray painted on all sides, and mounted to the walls.  But you can't beat the realistic look, imho.  The above photo shows how I cut the boards to fit.  The long back wall was easy because it's a rectangle.  The two side walls were more time consuming.  Here's what you do:  first you cut a board and you snip the end on the diagonal until you get the right fit to the angle of the slope of the roof.  Then you use that piece as a template to cut the ends of all remaining pieces because the slope of the roof is equal all the way up.  Once you have a bunch of boards cut with the correct angle for the roofline, you trim the non-angled end to fit.  Glue them all in place and you're good to go:

And here's a pic of the left side:

and here's a full-view pic of the finished attic walls.  There were a few extra boards so I also started the left side ceiling.  I still have to do the rest of the ceiling and the support beams, which aren't really needed for support, they will just be decorative:

and here is The Queen, herself, stopping by to check on my progress:

Yes, Evangeline, it comes with central-air and parking.

Laying the Floors

Today I (mostly) finished the floors for the attic.  I bought 30 two-foot by three-inch balsa planks at Michael's and cut them all in half longways.  I cut the planks into various lengths and then laid them on the floor in an uneven pattern to make them look natural.  After I got them all laid out the way I wanted  I mentally divided the floor into three sections and then removed each section one board at a time being careful to number the back of each board to make it easier to put them back the way I wanted them.  In this picture you can see the left section is painted and glue down, and the middle section is ready to be marked, painted, and then glued:

Here is a pic of the boards from the middle section.  I started in the back and worked my way forward, numbering each board as I picked it up:

I should add in here that if you're thinking about doing this you should create a budget.  You might think the most expensive part of this project would be the wood but it's actually the spray paint.  The Walnut Tone spray paint is $7 a can at Michael's and I've gone through about 8 cans so far and will need about 8 more before I'm done.  I am very diligent about using Michael's coupons to help keep the cost down so keep that in mind as well.  They usually have a 40% off one item coupon so I pretty much buy a can of it every time I'm in the store.

Once the boards were dry, and this spray paint dries completely in about 20 minutes, I glued the boards to the base.  Let's discuss glue.  Hot glue has a fast drying time and sticks fairly well but wood glue creates a stronger bond and is preferable in my opinion.  Wood glue, though, has a longer open time (the time between when you place your objects together and when the glue sets) and is therefore more difficult to work with.  So I used a combination of the two to make this easy.  I ran a thick bead of wood glue down the center of each plank and then put dabs of hot glue all over the board.  You have to work really quickly here because hot glue sets fast but as long as you have all materials together and you are working very close to the project you should be fine.  The result is that the dabs of hot glue held the boards in place immediately while the wood glue dried.  That beats standing around holding each board in place waiting for the wood glue to dry!

Here's a look at the finished floors (well, I still need to do the half board at the front end):

and here's a landscape view:

In this picture the far left section isn't painted yet but you get the idea.  As I write this I have finished all of the floors and actually moved on to the walls so you will see a wall entry tomorrow!

one more thing for today, though.  Michael's (can you tell I go there all the time?) has golf-ball display cases in their frame/shadow box section that look like this:

 The glass-paned door is held in place by two hinges and is easily removed.  Once removed, you just flip it upside down (all sides are finished so it looks fine upside down) so that the golf ball indentations are now on the bottom of the shelves and not visible.  I will eventually use these in the library at Barkley but little books are expensive so until I get enough of them, it makes an excellent shoe rack for Evangeline:

Building the Chimney

A great house like Barkley Manor has to have at least one chimney, probably more like seven, but let's keep this manageable.  Afterall, I am only building a cross-section of a wing of the attic, not the entire thing.  I need to get the chimney in place first so that I can add in the floor/wall/ceiling boards around it and have it look natural.  Plus, the boards will help hide any rough edges on the chimney.  I found a product called "Project Bricks" at Michael's.  They are foam bricks pre-painted to look like real bricks.  $14.99 for a huge box of them so bring that 40% off coupon!  They are perfect Evangeline-scale bricks;  go figure.  I have done many tedious things in my day for the sake of a diorama but building an Evangeline-scale chimney out of Evangeline-scale bricks might just take the cake.  I chose to use a hot glue gun on this.  I started by cutting a bunch of bricks in half with a small serrated knife so I could achieve the alternating brick look.  These bricks were quite nice to work with actually.  Then I just started gluing.  I burned myself a dozen times and I had glue gun threads all over the kitchen but after about 4 hours of labor I had built my little chimney of bricks and here's what I ended up with:

Here's a shot from a distance:

keep in mind that when I add the wall and ceiling boards you won't be able to see the rough edges.  They will magically make the edges disappear just as they would on a real chimney passing through an attic.

Here's the products used:

Boring Hard Part is Finished!

I finished the boring hard part of Evangeline's attic yesterday.  I assembled the right half, sanded the roof pieces, gave everything a light coat of the spray paint I will use on the floor, wall, and ceiling boards and then put it all together.  Here is a pic of the finished shell, with Evangeline to demonstrate scale.  Keep in mind that this is just the shell and the every visible surface will be covered with balsa planks to give it an authentic look.

There was a brilliant stroke of luck in this last stage that I could not have replicated on purpose if I had spent hours trying.  I accidently nailed one of the left side roof piece on the wrong way which made it half an inch too long lengthwise.  I then needed to trim the right side roof piece by half an inch.  This meant that the left side's roof piece would be resting on the right side's back wall by half an inch.  They fit together like interlocking pieces of a puzzle and gave added stability.  Here is a close up of the joint in the center when the two back walls and the two roof pieces all come together:

The support beam in the center which is actually a 99 cent piece of deck railing from Lowe's is mounted square in the front left corner of the right piece of the floor but with the measurement adjustment on the roof piece it means that the left side roof piece sits on top of it by 1/2 an inch, again, adding stability and leveling everything off.  I can hardly believe my luck on this one.  Here is a close-up of where the two roof pieces rest on the support beam:

Again, the paint looks messy but it's just an undercoat to guarantee that no plain wood will show through on the finished product.  Now I am ready to start the fun part!  I love doing the floors, ceilings, and walls.

Construction Begins!

A quick little entry to show you what I accomplished yesterday.  It took 3 trips to Lowe's but I am very happy with the end result.  The frame for the left half (pictured below) is together and extremely sturdy, and the pieces for the right half have all been cut, sanded, and tack-clothed, and are ready to be assembled.  Then all I have to do is get the roof pieces and I'm ready to start the good part!  The left half measures 33" wide, 24" deep, and 39" at it the peak of the gable.  The right half will be a mirror image.  The reason for the extra trips to Lowe's is that not all wood is created equal. I took the cheap way out and bought regular plywood, got it home and made all the cuts and discovered that it was warped, cracked, and a wasted pile of crap.  So I went back to Lowe's and upgraded to white birch which was more expensive but worth it in the end.  The plain plywood total was $24, the white birch total was a hefty  $108 but, really, when it comes to Evangeline, what's an extra $84 really?

The floorplan, The Book, and Algebra 1

Round one of this project was a bust.  I approached it in a freestyle, rough estimate, kind of way and that does not work.  I found this book to show me where I made my mistakes:

This book is short, sweet, and inexpensive.  It's $6.95 on Amazon but free for me because I happen to work for the company that publishes it.  I tried to work in an angle of building this during the week as a "getting to know our product"  project but my manager didn't bite.  One of my major mistakes in the first round was not taking into account the depth of the plywood (1/2') for all the internal measurements.  If you want a structure to be 40" high but it's sitting on top of a 1/2" piece of plywood and it has 1/2" thick piece of plywood for a roof then you need to make the wall 39" to allow for the expansion.  I know, it seems obvious, but I missed that on the first go-round.  So, with that in mind I drew up new plans:

 I am taking a cue from my Lego construction sets and building this in a modular format.  There will be two "modules" that will sit next to each other to form the whole attic.  I will make small overlapping adjustments to the floorboards to hide the seam.  The benefits to this are many, including:

1) it's easier to move it if you need to

2) it's more forgiving of mistakes

3) it will be more structurally sound

4) I can add more modules to it at a later date if I want to expand it

I did not include the roof pieces in this drawing because I really want to get the wall and floor shells together first so I can get accurate measurements for what I need for the roof.

So, according to this plan I need the following pieces of plywood:

(2) 33" x 24"

(2) 32 1/2" x 17 1/2"

(2) 40" x 23 1/2"

for that last one, don't forget that Lowe's doesn't make diagonal cuts for you so I need to give them the largest dimension of the piece.  The two side walls will be 40" high and slope down to 17 1/2 inches high.  Well, it is an attic ya know!  Now I have to go look at all the various pieces of wood that I already have and see what I can salvage.

Before I do that though let's have a quick refresher in Algebra 1.  This is how I figure out scale for everything.  According to Google, the average height for a woman is 5'5", or, 65".  Evangeline is 18"So...

For the highest point, 65"/ 18" = x"/40", now you cross multiply and divide and you get 144".  On the shorter end, you have 65"/18" = x"/17.5", cross multiply, divide and you get 64".  For width of the entire project I have 65"/18" = x"/66", blah blah, you get 238".  Divide all those totals by 12 to figure out feet and what you get is that this project, if Evangeline were human, would represent a 20 foot long section of attic that has a gable of 12 feet and a slope to 5 1/2 feet.  not bad!

"Mortimer, would you please pass the salt, dahling?"

We cleaned out our closets last weekend and I found a box that I forgot I had that contained odds and ends that belonged to my grandmother.  I went through the box today and I found this little gem:

This is an antique salt cellar and pepper set.  It is perfect scale for Evangeline.  The little salt bowl is the perfect size tureen for her to serve soup to Mortimer on chilly Ipswich Nights and the spoon is her size as well.  (speaking of soup, I bought a vintage salesman sample stove/oven on Ebay the other day and when it comes in it will be the subject of a blog entry but that's a story for another day.)  So, tip for the day, salt cellars make perfect bowls and spoons for Evangeline.  Now, what about the pepper shaker and tray?  The pepper shaker has made it's way to the mantle in the library at Barkley Manor and I hear it houses the remains of one of Evangeline's Ancestors:

And Evangeline loves to bring tea up to the attic on her tray:

Tomorrow I am going to Lowe's with the plans for the Attic Round 2 so stay tuned for updates on that front!

No More Chilly Ipswich Nights...

Alas, the title of this entry does not mean Mortimer has come around.  It means that I walked over to my favorite junk, I mean consignment, shop at lunch today.  Don't let this pic fool you, this is just the small little entry part.  This store is actually more of a complex and comprised of 3 buildings filled with stuff.  The owner knows how to move junk, she turns her entire inventory at least once a month so I have to go back every week to make sure I don't miss anything that could translate into something for Evangeline's attic.

Here's what I found today for $4:

"what is that pile of crap and what does it have to do with Evangeline?" you might ask.  Well, it's a Turkish Coffee pot.  And there was one little piece of it that I needed to have.  I could not leave without it and the owner refused to sell me just the part I wanted so I had to take the whole thing.  I don't even know what the part is exactly, feel free to chime in if you do, but it's not a strainer because there are no holes in it.  Here's a pic of the precious piece:

and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the Evangeline-scale Victorian bedwarmer that I needed.  I think the little lady might be preparing for bed as I write this, let's take a peek:

good night all!

The Space, and My First Round of Mistakes

Several people have said to me that they would love to create an attic for Evangeline but they don't have the space for it.  So I thought I would start by showing the relatively small area of a spare room where I intend to permanently keep this display.  We are lucky enough to have a spare room on the 3rd floor of our house, adjacent to our attic.  I think it's fitting to have Evangeline's attic next to a real attic, as sort of an attic within an attic.  The previous owner of our house had a workshop in the room and he built a work table into a corner nook and that is where I will build this.

The worktable is 69 inches long and 24 inches deep so that will be the dimensions for the base.  I should add that I have already constructed a first round of the attic and I made several mistakes that really were deal-breakers.  My original intent was to build a base and then make a triptych of walls secured with hinges to sit on top of the base.  Mistake number one was using plywood that was too thin for the base.  I had wanted the walls to just sit on top of the base but I now know that the dimensions of this project are too big to support that.  The walls need to be firmly attached to the base and the plywood I used was too thin for that to work.  Mistake number two was thinking I could have the three wall sections connected by hinges.  Again, given the size of the project they need to be firmly attached to each other.  My third mistake was thinking I could just rest the roof on top of the walls.  Again, nope, it needs to be attached.  So, in short, the base, the three walls, and the ceiling all need to be firmly attached.

The first base I constructed was on 1/4 inch thick plywood.  I bought balsa planks from Michael's to make the floor boards.  Balsa planks come 24 inches long by two inches wide and can found in the woodworking section of craft stores.  I cut the planks into 1-inch wide strips and then varied their lengths.  I spray painted them with Design Master Walnut Wood Tone 758 spray paint from Michael's (always remember to print a Michael's coupon.  If you forget they can scan the barcode from your coupon on your cell phone if you can access your email on your cell phone.) I then adhered them in random lengths to the base using Elmer's Wood Glue.  Here is what balsa planks look like when you find them at the store, and after you have cut them and spray painted them:

Once I adhered them to the base, it looked like this:

pretty cool, huh?  looks just like real flooring.  Balsa is amazing to work with.  You can cut it with an Exacto knife and metal ruler.  The only down sides to balsa are 1) it's not hideously cheap ($1.98 per two foot by two inch strip) and 2) it's dents and scratches easily.  So while it's fine to use it for a display piece you wouldn't want to use it on something that you actually "play" with because it will look like crap in a few weeks time.  But if you are building a diorama and are always careful not to drag stuff around on it and you don't let your pets walk on it or your 5 year old niece play with it then you should be fine.  The other thing I should I mention is that balsa comes in various thicknesses as well.  I bought an assortment of thicknesses (some are 1/16" and some are 1/8" thick.)  Randomly varying the thickness of the floorboards is very subtle and makes them look very attic-like.

Next I went to Lowe's and had them cut the walls for me from a single piece of white birch plywood ($24).  Know that Lowe's and Home Depot will only do straight cuts for you, not diagonals, so I had to do the diagonals at home myself using a rotary saw (this is when a butch husband comes in handy) I then spray painted the wall panels with the same paint I used on the floor.  I only did one coat on the walls, but had done 3 coats on the floor, to vary the shades.  Then I discovered that the walls were too heavy and large to be held together with hinges so I used nails.  At this point I was growing impatient and just wanted my display together so I could start the fun part, the decorating.  Impatience is seldom rewarded.  Here is what I ended up with:

I know it might look like a good start but it wasn't.  It just wasn't as secure as I wanted it to be and when I tried to add a plywood roof it was clear that it wouldn't be stable.   I had to just scrap it and start over.  So, this pic gives you an idea of where I am heading.  And I figure as long as I am starting over, why not make it bigger....

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was a boy.  A boy who was given every toy imaginable....as long as they were boy toys.  Star Wars, Lego, Thundercats, GI Joe, baseballs, basketballs, bikes, endless varieties of action figures and soldiers, enough toys, really, for 10 kids to play with and never get bored.  But this boy was different.  While other boys played outside in the dirt, ruining their action figures and spaceships, this boy was inside watching re-runs of The Addams Family and Bewitched, wishing he had a doll that looked like Morticia Addams.

I had a great childhood with loving and supportive parents and a large extended family.  I really had everything a boy needed....except a doll.  I always wanted a doll. Cabbage Patch or Barbie, I didn't care, I just wanted one.  But I never got one.  I am now making up for lost time :)

I feverishly collected Silkstone Barbies during their heyday but they aren't really meant to be played with and they took a turn for the weird.  Who needs a line of expensive Russian-themed Barbie dolls, or Silkstones dressed like Blanche from The Golden Girls?  Then, about a year ago, I discovered Tonner's website.  Ohhhhh, I loved his dolls!  As I wandered through his website I found a link to Wilde Imagination and discovered Evangeline Ghastly.  When I first saw the "Gone But Not Forgotten" section, I let out an audible gasp.  OMG, I had found my doll, the doll I had wanted my whole life.  And so began the chase.  Evangeline does not come cheap.  My entire Silkstone collection was sold, my action figures, Lego sets, Grandma's hummels (did I just admit that?), they all went on E-bay to raise funds, and room, for my growing Evangeline collection.   It has taken me a year of OCD behavior but I have found them all, tracked them all down, one by one, like King Haggrid in The Last Unicorn.

And now they need a home.  IKEA glass front cabinets are fine but I need something more appropriate for Evangeline.  I have decided to build her an "Attic of Barkley Manor" playset.  There are two parts to this project: first, building the actual attic, and second, stocking it with fabulous crap.  That's where this blog comes in.  I hope you will follow along as I troll yard sales, consignment stores, and antique shops for the perfect scale items needed to stock Evangeline's attic and I hope to inspire as I visit Home Improvement centers and lumber yards to build the perfect castle for my queen.