To stain or not to stain.......

The journey of 107 pieces begins with the first ten!  Yup, the cupboard at the back of the shop has 107 pieces - daunting?  You could say that.

As always I arrived at the conclusion that actually starting something is not only OK but it is actually pleasurable.  The days I spend procrastinating/mithering about it are a totally unnecessary torture of the soul.  So, why do I do it?

As usual ELF's flat pack goes together like a dream.  They are cut spot on accurately and so absolutely no corrective surgery is necessary.  Bing, bang, bosh - done.  I soooo wanted to carry on building (I did do the base cupboard backs too) but somewhere along the line I decided I would varnish the other pieces before assembling them.  Any problems with staining these back pieces won't show in the finished product.

The BIG debate is whether to stain first or after when building a piece.  Ideally (in RL) you build a piece and then stain it.  In human scale it is easier (?) to control the glue and not have any where you don't want it.  Working with such thin pieces as I am here it is nigh on impossible not to get a few bits and bobs where you don't want them.  I am a very tidy, pernickety worker and I can't manage it.  So...... if there is glue on a surface that you want to stain the stain will not cover the glue, not even over just traces of glue after wiping it off when wet.  There isn't enough material thickness to sand it back to wood so the only thing you can do is touch up with a little matching paint.  This isn't the happiest of solutions for all the reasons you can imagine.

If you stain first and then glue - the glue isn't happy about going over the stain and won't make such a good bond.  I still decided this was the least worst of the two options.  In an adult's dolls house the stuff doesn't get handled very much and so isn't prey to too many stresses and strains.  I am hoping the cupboard will stand there and behave itself.  Time will tell.

So after four cupboard backs I had to leave it for a couple of days until pensioners discount day at B & Q!  I had to buy timber  for the construction at the back and some paint and the afore mentioned stain.  Colron at £7.98 a tin, £12.99 for the MDF and £6.96 for two paints it is worth the wait to save £2.79.  Think of it less like £2.79 and more like nearly three quid towards some other mini thing!

This is a very rough taster of how it is going to look.  For a precise representation of the movie there should be a bit of a wall on the right of the cupboard (represented here by two bits of wood).  Strictly speaking even in the movie the cupboard isn't actually built in as it has a trim top and bottom of the base which extends slightly to the right and therefore the cupboard isn't flush against the wall.  At this stage I am a bit inclined to leave out the wall.  It isn't a difficult task but it doesn't seem to have a purpose even in terms of the actual shop building.  The cupboard will seem more 'true' just free standing and surrounding the door to the kitchen.

If you have eyes like a hawk and senses to accompany them you might notice the door has a bit of a list.  I showed you this door when I bought it and it had a sort of doorstep built in, which is fine if it were an outside door; it isn't.  It is the door to the kitchen and as an internal door doesn't need the frame at the bottom.  It lends itself to being sawn off because this particular door has proper hinges instead of rubbishy pins which need a top and bottom frame.

Guess who misjudged it?  Hey ho, piece stuck back in place - sort of.  Paint would have hidden a multitude of sins but sadly this door is going to be stained walnut.  An old shop (and later a bar) probably had wood-stained doors rather than painted.  The door is certainly wood-stained in the movie.  Be prepared to keep hearing that phrase.