The Staircase is Completed!

At this point, I now have the Architect's Loft at my home and I was able to work on the loft again, I set about ensuring all the furniture and accessories I had made would fit into place

I wanted the table I made from the House of Miniature kit to display a small model for the Architect.

I built a 1/144th scale house kit.  I understand the manufacturer of the kit no longer makes them.  It was a challenging kit to assemble with very little clear instructions.

But I managed to get most of the kit completed.

And just a light coat of paint, to keep it neutral.  I wished I had left it as shown above, but once I had it painted, I couldn't undo what I had done unfortunately.  Maybe I'll add some highlights or dry brushing.

I also assembled a filing cabinet for the Architect.  Then I filled it with lots of architectural supplies and books. 

Lisa started making some of the items she needed for her pottery studio as well.  Shelving to store the pottery was a first task.

 

Had to get Lisa her own figure as well.  Since neither of us are into dolls, she's got the Potterer, a close relative of the Architect, can't you see the same family features?   The Potterer has approved all the shelving.

 

Then it was back to our staircases.  I had these lengths of spindles I had purchased many years ago.

Using a heat gun, I removed the top and bottom rails and split all the spindles into individual pieces.

I sloped the top cut of the spindles to accommodate the railing.  I didn't get a picture of my stairs with the spindles attached, but here is Lisa's staircase.

We then painted our staircases with layers of glue, black paint, more glue and then metallic copper, gold and bronze and a coat of satin clear coat to give the wooden pieces the look of black wrought iron. We use Gorilla Glue because it does have an expanding property in it which helps remove the look of wood/plastic from the staircases.

The staircase railing came from an unusual item.  While working on the lighting (more on that later), I had to drop by a hardware store to get a small pipe cutter.  While browsing through the plumbing section I discovered the plastic tubing used to run a waterline to an ice maker in a refrigerator.  It's about 3/16ths of an inch, perfect size.  Eureka!  I had found my railing for my staircase.

Slitting an opening down the entire length of a piece of tubing I inserted the individual spindles into the slit, gluing and clamping each one.  The roll of tubing was enough for me, Lisa and seven other staircases....lol.  Or some other use when I figure it out.

You can also see the unpainted spindles in place on the top floor now as well.  I recycled the upper and lower rails that I had removed at the beginning, but spaced the spindles further apart.  Originally when they were already embedded in the railings, they were touching each other if you notice here.

Once the glue was dry, I removed the clamps and repeated the same paint technique on the hand rail.  I didn't cut the end of the tubing until I fitted it in place.

You can see on the railing below the first layer of painted glue on the handrail.  This removes the look of wood or in this case plastic and leaving a finish that mimics metal.

Here's a closeup of the painted finish on the staircase and handrail.

Here's the railing and staircase in place, but I still need to add a few newel posts, which will be finished in the same paint technique.

More of the finished look with the lighting in the next post!

Until the next time......

Wanda (and Lisa, the Architect and the Potterer)