Some tools you will need...

Le salon de l'Hotel Mame

Hello everyone,

I don't know if anyone read yesterday's post as no one left comments.

The roombox I'm planning to build starts to look like what I had in mind but first, let me show you tools that you may need soon. Christmas is coming so....

The table saw allows you to cut pieces of wood, straight or at angles. The maximum thickness is 1cm. It cuts straight and also at angles. But you can only cut small pieces of wood, not entire walls.

Don't push small pieces of wood with your finger, it cuts everything, including fingers.

Then, you will need a small driller. Your husband's driller will be too big and too heavy. A smaller model will be necessary with very small drills.

Later you may need a shaper, it will allow you to design your own moldings and cornices. 

I am not sponsored by the maker but I know some people will ask me who make them. So here is the link.

The first advantage is that the table saw and the shaper are small. You can use them on your table, you don't need a workshop. 

The second,  there is a connector behind that allows you to connect both to your vacuum cleaner and reduce the amount of dust. Because both machines make a lot of dust!

Until recently, I didn't have a workshop and built all my projects in the living room. I could work outside, in the garden,  but as you know Thailand is a hot country so forget about working outside!

Last tool for today, these scissors that allow you to cut at angles. They are called multi angle miter shear. You can easily cut small pieces of wood, for flooring for example.

Then all the other tools, you already have, glue, screws of all sizes, rulers, etc....

The roombox I am planning to build with you will be one of 6. 

I mean I'm planning to build a French medieval house and each room will be a box. I found out that my houses are very heavy, can't be separated and sometimes can't even go through actual doors. So i'm planning to build each room as a box and connect them.

This is an example of what NOT to do

First, the picture I started from:

Then, the building in 1/12 and all in one piece. The 4 sides open. It was a crazy idea to build something as big as this!

This one, l'Hotel Mame is all in one piece too and is very heavy.

So I want to find a way to separate the front of the house from the inside rooms.

The building is called l'Hotel de la Croix Blanche. It's a XIII-XIVth century building, late medieval style. Here is a photo:

I'm going to start with the room downstairs on the left. 

I have a lot of photos from the outside but none of the inside, so I have taken photos of medieval castles I visited last year while I was in France. 

Of course, this is not a castle, but the photos will give me ideas for the decoration and the layout of the rooms.

I have found someone on Etsy, called Viorica who knows how to use CNC very well and I ordered the windows from her. I couldn't make them. 

The furniture will come from Arjen in the Netherlands who uses laser to make very nice reproductions of furniture. 

I wish I could afford real miniatures made by skilled craftmen. I can't. I have to use modern technologies that have allowed many people to enter the world of miniatures.

So the 1st room has a window, a big fireplace and a door. The door is very low as people were much shorter than we are.

For the fireplace, I searched the Internet, XIIIth century, French.

Then, in the window, on the left, there will be seats included in the wall like this:

The light will come through the window from the left.

The floors will be real tiles made by French Henry Bart, 

I have already used his tiles, they are amazing. This time, I will use small square terracota tiles.

Here you can see another model of XVIIIth century French tiles in the hallway and in the dining room of l'Hotel Mame.

By the way, "hotel" in French means a big house in the past, not what we know of a hotel. In Paris, wealthy people lived in "hotels particuliers".

Let's go back to our roombox.

After writing all the dimensions of the room (40cm X 40cm) I cut the 3 sides, the ceiling and the floor.

Then I focused on the fire place, did the cornice on the shaper and assembled the pieces. There is a hole on the back wall for the depth of the fireplace.

Then I built the niche where the window will be and checked the fireplace was big enough. In the old days, fireplaces were huge.

When I am not sure, I check with my databank of photos. Here is a room at Langeais Chateau, near Tours, my hometown in France.

Since a project comes and grows, I had saved pictures of tapestries on my computer. 

I printed them on canvas and checked yesterday that they would look good in the room. 

I added some furniture,  I already had, a greyhound I print and paint and some flooring and I had a 1st idea of the room. 

I think it will be good. What do you think?

All your comments and questions are welcome.

Have a great Sunday.