furniture making

Well I thought it was about time I showed you something else that I have made, one of the only projects on my list that I have completed!  I have not made an ugly fire and fireguard!!

We are currently living in a rented house so any major renovation work, that I have designed down to finishing touches in my head, are out of the question. 

This old gas fire is in what we are using as a playroom.  It is a lovely room with a huge bay window that gets lots of light, and is right next to the kitchen, so me and the kids usually spend most of our time during the day in here reading books and playing.  It has been totally disconnected, as we never used it and the pilot light kept blowing out every time I went near it with a hoover.  We kept the fire guard as the children thought it was a good game to fiddle with the buttons, however it didn't fit very well and every time I walked past and knocked it, it would fall down.  That isn't touching on the fact that it is SO UGLY!

What we could do to improve it?  I started looking at radiator covers to see if they would fit and solve our problem.  But they turned out to be very expensive for what they are, so why couldn't I try to make something that would fit our specific requirements and maybe incorporate some storage for books and toys that were overflowing from their current storage!

Now once I had thought of this, I just ran with it, and had drawn up a rough design that evening.  The following weekend we visited our local timber yard and had my bits of MDF cut out.   

So I was ready to go, and set up in the living room to create my masterpiece ;-)  Probably not the best place to do it but the weather was rubbish, Ian took the kids out, and we hadn't yet sorted out the garden room as my sort of 'studio' - will show you that another day!

I really enjoyed putting this together, and it was strange, all that smell of the MDF dust as I was drilling and sanding and I was 15 again in our school technology block!  I used to spend hours there, it's funny and comforting how smells can do that so vividly.

Here it is constructed, but not painted

Just to make sure it looked homemade, only a couple of the shelves are a bit wonky!

Here it is in place and painted.  I painted it a lovely pale grey (can't remember the exact shade) and painted the central panel with blackboard paint.

....and here it is in place with all of the children's books and toys on it.

The children absolutely love it!  They enjoy drawing on the chalk board - even Ian has had a play, but he needs to remember you use CHALK on a blackboard, not wax crayons!!  They love that all their books are easy to reach (I graduated the height of the shelves so all Elsa's little books are on the bottom)  They are both extreme book worms, George's nursery teacher even said they are having to try and persuade him to do things other than read books!  They just need to practice their tidying up skills!

I have got so many projects waiting to be done!  The plan is to get the house sorted when my mum is up later this week, and then get on with it!  So hopefully I will be able to show you some more exciting things soon.

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