Anyway, I painted the outside of the elevator and put trim around the door. It's a start. Then I went to work making shelving to go next to it on the left wall.
Some of you probably are old hands at making shelving, but I will explain a simple way to go about it here. You can make plain old shelves or make them look pretty fancy. It's up to you and how much work you want to put into them.
I decided that the shelves should cover 5" of the wall width wise and be 7" tall. They had to be about 3/4" deep to hold the books. That's basically the only measurements that I needed since I didn't have to be too exact. I then decided that I wanted the shelves to be about 1 1/4" apart. I took 1/16" thick bass wood and cut strips 3/4" wide. For the unit I was making I cut two that were 7" long and six that were 5" long. I then took a piece of 1/16" square stock and cut that in 1/2" lengths. Since I had 6 shelves to hang I needed twelve 1/2" pieces.
Next I took the two 7" pieces and marked them for the "braces" that I needed for each shelf. I started at the top and marked 1/16" away(the thickness of the shelf). Then I dropped down 1 1/4" from that mark and did it again. I kept doing this until I had 6 marks on each one.
I then took the tiny 1/16" square stock and glued a half inch piece just below each line on both pieces. I glued them towards the back so that they aren't noticeable from the front. I let those dry.
A side note here, it helps greatly to have a micro-mark square jig. If you don't, find some other way to hold the bookcase square while gluing it together. I started at the top and ran a small bead of glue on top of the square stock. I put a shelf across. I continued doing this until all of the shelves were in place. When I was sure that the whole bookcase was square and the shelves were level I let it dry. If I were worried about people seeing the joins I would have stained all of the pieces of wood first. Since I wasn't I waited until the piece was dry and then stained it.
Now comes the fancy part. I stained some molding that I wanted to use and let it dry.
I mitered some small crown molding to fit the top of the bookcase. In this case I only did the end facing the viewer. The other end I squared off so that the side of the bookcase would fit against the wall of the elevator.
Then I took 1/16" double bead molding and glued a long strip to each side edge. I then cut shorter pieces to fit across the front of each shelf.
This is as far as I have gotten today. I will wait until tomorrow to sand and varnish with Deft Satin. I like to make sure that the stain is really dry before I do the final 3 coats of varnish and sanding.
Like I said before, you can make a really fancy bookcase with this same method. The cream colored arched top shelving unit that is in the Rusty Needle Quilt Shop is basically made the same way. I simply faced it with an arched piece of bass wood on the front and added a lot of trim and molding.
Meanwhile, I went back to the bay window. I started doing some decorative painting. I cheated and used a gold pen. I don't think that it shows up well enough. I am either going to have to outline it with a Pigma Micro .005 pen or put some color in with the gold. I'm not sure which yet. As Meatloaf would say......Let Me Sleep On It. It definitely needs something.
Back to work.
See you tomorrow.
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