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Monday, August 22, 2011

Stairway to Heaven....

Well, maybe it's not that high.... At least it reaches the roof garden. I am almost done with the railing...The usual excuse. I am waiting for the glue to dry.

I didn't want a solid railing so I cheated a lot. It's more fun that way.

I made the posts with bamboo skewers, a little thicker than the porch posts, painted black and cut to the same length as the ones on the roof garden railing.

Thanks to Jill, I had just the right rings for the top of the posts. They are of flat metal and about 1/16" wide. I pulled the rings apart. They were just a scrap of a necklace or some other piece of jewelry. I fastened them to the top of the posts in three steps.

I cut some metallic gold tape into 1/8" wide strips. I fastened about half of the strip to one side of the post. Then I strung on one of the rings and pulled the strip down tight to the other side of the post, leaving the ring tight in an upright position on the top. The last step was to wrap a piece of the tape around the top of the post underneath the ring. The fourth post in the photo is what it looked like when I was done.

The next problem was how to fasten them to the steps. I already had that one figured out. I took some small metal eyelets and glued them to the steps with the wide end on the bottom. The opening just happens to be the same diameter as the posts.

When those were fairly dry, I put glue in each hole and fitted a post into them.

In answer to your next question...No. I have not gone mad and started building mini stairways to get from one level to the next in the cat tree. That was just a convenient place to put it until it dries.

It is still not completely dry. I will probably wait until tomorrow to string the copper chain through the holes. The chain is pretty heavy and by the time I got two threaded and started on the third, the first one was tilted sideways and not too happy to be holding the chain. If you enlarge the photo, you can see it through two rings to Zar's right, your left.

I took it out right after taking the photo. It needs to dry a lot more.

That is as far as I am going to get today, what with laundry and housekeeping. Real life sometimes gets in the way...

See you tomorrow.

7 comments:

Minka said...

What can I say? I'm impressed. Very impressed.

Sans! said...

I really like the eyelet idea. Thanks for sharing, Casey.

Lataina said...

Ingenious! It looks really good, Casey. I love how it all fits together! =)

Unknown said...

That looks great! I bet Zar is loving it all. Tessie must be so jealous! I am surprised that she hasn't taken the posts and hidden them somewhere! Now where does she want you to build some for her? But of course they will have to be bigger and "fancier". lol

Anonymous said...

I hope Zar appreciates your attention to detail. That railing is fantastic. I love your ideas and how you put everything together.

otterine said...

Definitely ingenious using the eyelets!

Caseymini said...

I am glad that the eyelets worked. It was just a trial and error thing, so that I wouldn't have to drill holes. BTW, the eyelets that I used are sold in scrapbook sections and the little box comes with 4 metallic colors plus black and white, so it is quite a good supply for just a few dollars.