I haven't done anything with my carpet shop for nearly a month, after clearing off my "work space" — which is the dining-room table — for Julia's apparently-annual birthday tea. (Not that I'm complaining about that, mind you. I had the tea part all organized with a prep schedule, everything made ahead except the scones, so didn't feel at all overwhelmed and in fact quite enjoyed it, and the guests did too. The only part that wasn't organized, to my annoyance at myself, was tidying up beforehand.) Anyway, I've pulled out much of the shop from its various storage/hiding places, and realize that I'm quite far along towards completing it.
This is the House of Miniatures Chippendale Desk ("ca.1750-1790"), kit no.40017, which despite the "$5" written on the box was on the giveaway table at one of my miniatures group's meetings some time ago. I knew that I wanted a desk for the carpet shop, so I was delighted to see it there.
But this little piece proved to be puzzle upon puzzle upon puzzle, in both its background and the putting-together.
Wait a minute, two bags of hinges? After some pondering, and an unrelated inspection of the parts list, I realized that the second bag in fact does not belong here, as the screws on the parts list illustration are clearly round-headed, where these are flat. It is possible that a previous owner decided that the round-headed screws were too bulky-looking and hoped to substitute a spare set with flat-headed screws — quite likely, in fact, as I thought the same thing when trying to decide which to use! — or they just migrated inadvertently into another box — also quite likely, as I have seen the workrooms of dedicated miniaturists, tidy but very full.
Wait a minute — again — in the photo on the box the slant front is attached coving-side out, and on the little "historical fact" note, the slant front is attached coving-side in. The writing surface in both of these illustrations also clearly has no galumphing hinges on it either. But the instructions tell you to start off by carving out (yourself) tiny notches for the hinges….
By the time I got this far, I had seen Maria Nikolajeva's post on the desk, and then I found a post about one that Brae had done, and after reading the post a couple of times thought "wait a minute — hers has pins instead of hinges!" The page for this kit at the (unofficial) House of Miniatures webpage says that there were two versions of the slant-front desk, one 1976-1979ish without pigeon-holes inside and a few years later one from 1979 on with them, but it seems that there were two versions of the earlier one as well, one with hinges and one with pins. It looks like the pinned version of the earlier desk has no coving on the slant-front, either.
Well, this research was all very curious and interesting, but much of it was, really, my putting off doing the hinges, about which I had no choice because there they were. So I just dove in.
There was not any end-grain sealer to be had at the local hardware store, and I didn't want to keep running around to different stores (as I had just done looking for stencils …), so on the advice of a number of woodworking sites, I made my own, out of 9 parts water to 1 part white glue, in an old jam jar.
(Which provided me with a bonus "V" for the ABChallenge —
"adj. 1. another term for vermicular [like a worm in form or movement; vermiform]." Which leads me, word geek that I am, to wonder, in both admiration and mystification, why on earth we need three words in the same language for "like a worm in form or movement"?!)
I cut the hinge slots myself, with David's direction, after practicing on a piece of scrap wood. The person who had the kit before me had penciled in two of the four placement marks and stopped there, 20+ years ago — fair enough, it was a pain.
To give you an idea of scale, those are David's fingers (casting a shadow) at upper left! He is making the pilot holes here — you attach the hinges before anything else, then take them off again and put the desk together and finish it, then reattach the hinges in the established locations.
He carefully filed off the tips of the screws, so that they would be short enough not to poke through the desk front.
After that, it was a walk in the park, really. I did everything myself except trim the screws and make the pilot holes — I did the holes in these drawer fronts with a pin vise! — so I'm rather pleased with myself.
The piece is stained with one coat of General Finishes Black Cherry, and finished with two coats of Ceramcoat gloss varnish. I added in some aging along the way, smearing a bit of glue that was on my finger onto the top of the desk as a sort of water stain, and lightly sanding off some of the stain along the top edges of the drawers where there would be more wear over time. I also used the metal ferrule from an old pencil to stamp some glue on the desk top, just beyond the right-hand hinge, hoping that it would look like some careless person had left a coffee mug on it, but unfortunately (!) maybe it wasn't enough glue, as the stain seeped underneath, nearly disguising it entirely. (Ironic, of course, that when you want to leave a cup ring on a piece of furniture, it doesn't work!)
So now that the rather nerve-wracking bit of doing the hinges is long over, I'm very pleased with this, and happy to see that the chair I wanted looks just as good as I had hoped, an antique desk with a modern office-type chair! Later, I will make some IKEA-era cubbies/organizers for the paperwork that I'm sure will have accumulated in an old carpet shop ….
