Every now and then I get the urge to make something bigger than 1:6 scale.
Like, PEOPLE sized.
Out of WOOD.
Never mind the fact that I have no knowledge of which wood is best for what or even a proper way to cut said wood. I have a will and a few hand tools and no other adult in the household to second-guess my crazy ideas.
So when I found this amazing drop leaf table at the antique store, I knew it would be a perfect base for staging photos. I just needed to build a hutch to complete the look. Cue the montage music!
Here's my beautiful table. I wish you could feel the surface! So uneven and battered but completely smooth and just look at that warm color. <3 I unscrewed the drop leaf hinges (saved for later in case I want to reattach) and used the leaves as a lower shelf. I also placed bed risers underneath to raise the height to match my cutting table, making it more comfortable to photograph and allowing maximum light to reach the surface.
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All done! Just kidding. This is a mockup of what I hoped to achieve. I'm not up to making anything this fancy though, so no doors. Boo.
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The Weekend Wood Warrior's living room smells like sawdust. Which is not that bad actually, but paint smell is another matter. :( I got the big cuts done where I bought the wood and trimmed the short shelf and facing pieces myself with a handsaw.
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Looking good! Sort of. After the glue set, I nailed it all together and checked my progress in the space. I was happy with the overall structure but that green needed doctoring. For the second coat, I mixed in some grayish tone and that came out perfect. Both paints were leftover from previous projects which made my wallet happy.
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Now we're really getting somewhere! Upside-down. XD Since I won't be attaching the hutch permanently, I made the back longer. This will rest behind the table to keep the tall, shallow shelf very stable. Here I am painting late at night with the fever of weekend warrior-ness relentlessly driving me.
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How did I achieve such a gorgeous stain color, you ask? Mod Podge + leather stain + a squirt of burnt sienna acrylic paint to warm up the second coat. Yes, I AM cheap and dangerously experimental.
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Almost done! Sure, the hutch and table are together, but more staging needed to happen. This is where I spent just as long fixing up the knick knacks and checking it in photos as I did making the whole darn thing.
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NOW it's done! Absolutely not perfect but I am super pleased with how it turned out. I can't wait to take lots of lovely photos and flat-lays here without have to drag my backdrops out of storage each time. And the best part is I can completely change the look by changing the accessories but the table and hutch will provide a great background for years to come!
Or at least a few weekends. ;)