 |
| Diner's interior |
For the past week, I’ve spent a little bit of time each evening working on my diner. A few years ago I had made the beginnings of the counter and had even gone so far as to cover the front of it with thin cardboard. The ‘skeletons’ of what will become the booths and tables were made at this time too.
At that time I had considered covering the booth pieces with stained pieces of wood, but had decided against this because I didn’t want to deal with the wood stain fumes. The instructions in Kath Dalmeny’s book talk about covering the booth pieces with brown paper. I didn’t think the brown paper I had available would match the color shown in the book. What I did have on hand were a couple of small dark brown gift boxes. I saved these until I was ready to use them to cover the booths.
 |
| Tabletops and counter section drying after having paper glued to the backside |
Over the past week I glued pieces of these dark brown boxes to the foam core booth ‘skeletons’. Previously I had cut from nice cream-colored heavy paper the tops for the tables and the counter. The thought of gluing the paper to the curved parts of the counter scared me, so I started off by gluing the paper onto the tops of the counter and the tables. After this dried, I glued the paper completely to the tabletops and then started gluing it to the counter.
 |
| Counter with heavy paper glued on top |
 |
| Gluing the paper to curved section of counter |
I cut triangular pieces out of the edge of the paper when I began gluing the paper to the counter’s curved edge. Little by little I glued these triangular edges to the underside of the counter. This process worked out very well for me and as the counter’s creamy-colored surface began to take shape, my confidence in the project grew.
 |
| Gluing straight edges to counter's underside |
When I first began to make the counter and other furniture for the diner I knew I wanted to copy the items that Ms. Dalmeny makes for the diner in her book, Dollhouse Style. However, when it actually came to making the furniture for this scene I found that I had a space issue. The shop that I decided would be made into a diner is too small to accommodate the dimensions of the furniture that are illustrated in her book.
Upon realization of this I decided to use it more as inspiration for my project. I scaled down the counter’s size and then made booths and tables out of Lego to test out the sizing of those items coupled with the counter. This turned out to be a great way to get an idea of how the diner would look when finished.
I then transferred those measurements of the Lego made booths and tables into foam core board pieces, which I glued together to form the ‘skeletons’ for the booths.
When I first designed my counter I realized that it wouldn’t be able to be a freestanding object. The plan is to have one end next to a wall. The other end will be hinged to add an element of realism in that whomever is working the counter will be able to move from behind the counter out to the tables. The plan is to put a door behind the counter. This won’t be a working door and will only be there to hint that there is a kitchen behind the door.
Cut pieces of foam core board will be used as booth seats and backs. Working on this project has spread to the weekend. Saturday was spent cutting batting and vinyl fabric to the proper size to use for the booths and stools. The batting was then sewn using a sewing machine to the wrong side of the vinyl fabric and I began to sew the stool cushion pieces together. I tried to sew the pieces for the stool cushion on the sewing machine, but unfortunately found that this wasn't possible because of the pieces were too small. I only cut enough fabric pieces for two stools. I think that I may only have room around the counter for two stools.
I sewed a cushion for one stool today by hand. I made the small circle of cardboard to go inside as Ms. Dalmeny suggests and put a couple of pieces of foam circles inside and then sewed it up. What was difficult was that it wasn’t until I trimmed the seam allowances that everything fit inside. It would’ve been nice if that had been mentioned in the book.
After covering the countertop and extended counter section with heavy paper, I hinged the sections together. The hinges were first glued to the edges and then the tiny nails were sunk into the foam core board. This will all be reinforced with glue to keep the nails from coming out. I found a piece of mat board that will work for the floor. On a shopping trip to my beloved local miniatures store, Once Upon A Time, I purchased flooring paper that I’ll use in the diner. My hope is to arrange the pieces so that border around the outside edge is continuous. Since flooring is the last thing that I do when creating one of my miniature projects, it will take awhile to see if this actually will work out.
