17/5/11

Today Jess and I created the frame for the bedroom window. We tried to make it similar to Karen’s design on the living room windows, however we found it difficult as the frame is at an angle and where the flats join up does not line up straight. We ended up screwing the frame to the surrounding flats as this seemed the easiest option. After helping file pieces of the fireplace, some of the group and I started to create the skirting boards. We used 18mm MDF, making the skirting 15cm x 8ft.

16/5/11

During the morning I spent my time working on the bedroom walls. Ben showed me how he used scraps of tissue mixed with paint and PVA to create the texture on the walls. We added the tissue to the wall were the wallpaper had been scraped off. I think it worked quite well to add expressionism to the room and is strong evidence of a non-human form living in the room. In the afternoon I helped to cut out shapes of MDF used for the door panelling. This took quite while to do as there were many pieces which needed to be cut all with different measurements.

13/5/11

I decided to cover the seats of my dining chairs as they were both ripped and had leather coverings which I found was uncommon in that era, and would not match the upholstery in the other pieces of furniture. I brought half a metre of dark red cotton fabric and used a staple gun to secure it in place. I first covered both the rips in the seats with duct tape so they would not be visible through the fabric. As the seats were already broken and very old I decided that taking the leather off first may cause the stuffing to escape and be quite difficult to remove. Overall I am very pleased with my dining chairs as I think the style and colours work well with the décor in the living room, although I believe the room would look more realistic with more dining chairs due to the size of the dining table. After I covered both my chairs, I then helped Eleanor to paint her dining table in similar colours to my dining chairs, adding wood grain texture and a gloss varnish.

12/5/11

After Eleanor had measured and cut out all the pieces she needed for the dining table, Sarah L and I helped to secure the pieces together. We first adjusted the legs of the table to co-operate with the height of the chairs. However we found the table was quite high in order for people to use the table while sitting on the chairs, which meant having to shorten the legs by cutting 5” of the ends. We also came up with the idea of building a frame underneath the table which we could attach the sides to. Using wood PVA and nails we attached the sides and the legs to the table top.

11/5/11

All day I helped Laura to create the armchair for Mrs Samsa. Following Laura’s designs we cut out the shapes needed from MDF and Plywood using the bandsaw in the workshop a drilled them together using a variety of different sized screws. After I helped to create the wooden base of the chair Laura then covered the seat in foam and covered the entire chair in a floral fabric.

10/5/11

Henry came in to show us how to apply the wallpaper in the living room. Most of the group helped to cover the room in the wallpaper John had brought. We found it quite hard to match the pattern on each strip as only a small area matched up which also meant we had a lot of excess wallpaper. Unfortunately we realised that we would not have enough rolls of paper to cover the room so Jess, Eleanor and I went to B&Q to get some more, while the rest of the group continued to wallpaper. When we had covered most of the walls we realised we only had a small section by the door to cover which seemed a waste to open a whole new roll of paper especially as we had so many spare scraps of paper left over. After a vote the majority of the group decided to cover the last section in left over excess wallpaper, which also helped to keep our budget lower.

9/05/11

Along with a few others in the group, I helped paint the first layer of paint in Gregor’s bedroom to the designs John had created. We used a mixture of different coloured paint in shades of brown, green, yellow and black. One of the paints we had planned to use was very thick and lumpy which gave a great texture on the wall when applied thickly. Whilst the paint was wet we added some sawdust which was the contents of the vacuum, which was thrown over the large lumps of paint. However some of the sawdust had to be removed as the wallpaper which was to go over the top would not stick to the wall well. After, the whole group helped to cover the living room walls in wallpaper paste to help the wallpaper adhere to the ply wood.