Tea Shop Furniture: I have painted $1 furniture and decorated it with paint or decoupage and it no longer looks quite so cheap. I used clear lacquer to seal and it handles well. I think if you use fancy cocktail toothpicks for the table legs and a heavy cardstock for the tabletops, with linens they ought to do for a tearoom. You could use a similar technique for the chairs, I recall a local sandwich shop (no longer in business:-() that covered the seats and backs of the chairs with print fabric to match the tablecloths. It was very effective because I noticed that none of the tables or chairs would have matched each other otherwise!

Olegator

Tea Shop Furniture: Smuckers jar lids are already gingham patterned; if you use them as your tiny tabletops, you could even set one up as if that table were in the middle of being bused and the new cloth hadn't been laid down yet!

Loretta.Sniarowski

Tea Shop Furniture: I'm wondering if using "fancy, finished" legs glued on a not-so-special table top, all covered w/ a tablecloth and topper would be a way to get small round or sq. tables for the tea room room-box? It seems I could make them all matching in size and finish that way and not spend my grocery money. Any hints for making these?" I think this would be not only a solution, but authentic! I've certainly made IRL tables for myself this way. LOL I wouldn't even worry about consistency. The quaint tea shops I've been to had all different tables, chairs, settings, etc. and it was just charming.

Chrissy the Hyphenated from Upstate NY

Tea Shop Furniture: I made my tea shop tables from rounds of Styrofoam. Buy one of those long cylinders and use about an inch and a half for each table. When you put a round piece of cardstock on the top, cover it with a circle of fabric made by measuring the diameter and twice the height of the cylinder, then use pins to hold it in place until it dries. I also covered the bottom of the cylinder before putting the cloth on it. You can then trim it with lace or bunka. Put a fringed square on top, too, and then you really have a classy table for your shop. And don't have to spend all the grocery money, either.

Dottie in Tucson

I've not seen a House That Jack Built, but trying to visualize it, I came up with the idea that it belongs to a bachelor(ette?) shop owner or professional of some kind.

Clients/customers leave their coats in the little room and come in to shop? consult? have a portrait taken? be fitted for a dress? The owner lives in the two rooms above, with an eat-in kitchen and probably a small bath on the 2d floor, with a bed-sitter on the 3rd, and storage in the attic. Can you fit a circular stair between the 2d and 3rd and fake up a drop down ladder thing to the attic? I've gone to a number of establishments that aren't too far different from this, including a vet, a doctor, a seamstress, a picture framer, a used book seller, and a photographer.

BTW, my in laws house has a very small room to the right of their front door. It's a walk in coat closet. Almost like a mud room, really, it collects all the coats, boots, hats, skis, yada yada, which is nice, since they then aren't dumped in the hall where everyone will trip on them the way they are in MY house.

Chrissy the Hyphenated

Backyard items: Just looking at our messy backyard, and using some more messy imagination:
- -a birdbath/bird houses/bird feeders/ birds
- -garden gnome
- -rain barrel
- -bikes, toys, sand box
swing set
baby pool
wood pile, axe
laundry line
wheel barrow
garden swing
gardening tools, watering can
rubber boots
lawn mower
compost bin (mice? raccoons?)0 of course, being in Alberta- no rats at least.
picnic bench
gazebo, potting shed
the junk that's on the way to the garbage/ dump.
barbeque
Adirondack chair,
drinks, books, etc. left on the table, chair
flowers in pots, broken pots, potting soil,
sundial
fountain
secret places among the trees
wind sock
fire pit
wild animals, rabbits
rabbit hutch
Various projects on the go- the bike who's chain needs oiling, the first doll house kit that I made that is going to get stuccoed and turned into a bird house, the rusty railroad tie nails that I am trying to clean (not taken from the rr!) enough? I'd better go and clean up my back yard! On second thought it's a losing battle.

Laura

Styrofoam cups: The tops to a lot of glue bottles (Tacky comes to mind) look a bit like Styrofoam cups when you sit them on their closed ends.

Janet in Baltimore

Floor Finishes: I use Deft to finish my wood floors. I use basswood because I like to stain them oak. After the stain is dry I apply Deft by dipping an old soft rag (usually my husband's discarded undershirts) and rubbing it on. Let that dry overnight, steel wool, varnish again, let dry. I then usually rub it down with brown paper sack and then a clean soft cloth (more undershirts) And my husband keeps wondering why I keep replacing his undershirts with new ones so often!

Fannye

Finishing Tips: I make a sanding block. Mine is 1¼"x2½". I wrap it tightly with fine sandpaper and masking tape to hold it. That way when I'm sanding floors or anything flat, the pressure is consistent over the entire piece. This gets into corners and up against walls perfectly.

The Deft varnish that I use is not high gloss. But I buff it so that it will "glow" You can see some reflection of furniture legs, but just enough to make it look rich. And again, I wipe the varnish on with a soft cloth. Again with the old undershirts!

Also for tile floors or marble where you want a really, really high gloss, I have used thin Plexiglas on top of the patterned floor. After the baseboards and trim at the back of the house are on you cannot see the edges and it just looks like high gloss marble or tile.

Fannye in TX

Deft: Deft is basically lacquer. It comes in both spray and brush on, semi-gloss and gloss. I use this extensively in my minis for several reasons:

1) It dries extremely fast 2) If you build up several layers and steel wool the final layer it gives a beautiful rich finish 3) The building up of several layers can somewhat fill small pores in the wood that might show with one layer of traditional varnish.
2) I usually apply about 4 layers - (I use the spray semi gloss most of the time) When the final finish is dry, buff with 0000 steel wool and it gives and incredible deep finish. If you like it glossier, apply a little spray wax and rub in.
3) Caution! Deft is not the finish to use if your item will be exposed to water - it will turn milky if water rings get on it, etc. For minis this is not usually a problem.

Bonnie Gibson