Finishing the bookshelves

 I left you with the bookshelves ready for painting.  needless to say that took a while to even start..... what colour????  Again!!!  Why does it always come as a surprise to me that every time I have to 'choose' everything stops.

Greens too dark, woodstain not great on bass wood

Luckily before I had to actually paint them, they needed the prep done.  I can't emphasise enough how this is the step you can not afford to skip.  before painting or staining any wood give them a good look and FEEL.  Feeling is even more important, if there is anything not as smooth as smooth, make it so.

Top is before, bottom is after

 Think carefully about which areas you actually need to paint.  Try to leave any wood that is to be glued to anything else unpainted as wood to wood will certainly glue better than paint to paint.

one coat

 Rub down after one coat and do a second or even third.  I only needed two coats this time. Then choose what finish you would like to add.  I had used a Craig and Rose chalk paint (eu de nil) and I wanted a (1/12th) gloss paint appearance.  I tested three areas I painted on the back of a piece with wax polish, and a gloss and a satin varnish.  Satin as usual won out.  Wax seems to do nothing unless you work away at it for ages, gloss is too shiny at 1/12th scale and satin (for me) is just right. (said Goldilocks)

R to L - wax, gloss, satin

I made little cardboard templates as usual to mark up the spaces between the shelf positions, marked them with a pencil, then glued the shelves in.

template and pencil line showing where shelf needs to go

 Another teeny cardboard template came in handy to mark the position of the door knobs so they were all in exactly the same place without having to measure and mark them.  'T' for top....

I drilled a small hole and found the knobs just pushed in so perfectly that I didn't need to glue them.  I always love the detail in this game and find these tiny knobs so pleasing.  They are incredibly tiny, wonderfully detailed and made in a lovely wood.  You can get them from Elf Miniatures without them having to be part of a kit.  (£2.35 for ten)

I am not even varnishing or painting them

I needed to add a couple of strips of wallpaper to the bits of the room that wouldn't be covered in bookshelves...

......... and locate the shelf over the door.....

Then it was just a simple case of gluing in the shelves themselves.

just waiting to be trimmed

(18/5/17)