The book nook for my mom is done, and what a wild ride it was! To review, let's go over some of my mom's favorite things:
-yellow and green
-flamingos
-being a night owl
-sewing
Okey dokey, recap done. I started off with the walls and flooring, of course. I knew I wanted the front room to be yellow and the kitchen to be green. It was easy peasy to paint the kitchen green. But I had a very hard time finding a yellow wallpaper I liked. Even in things like scrapbook paper, I couldn't find something that I thought would go with my mom's style.
While I pondered my wallpaper problem, I got to work on the kitchen, or the back room of the nook. It went pretty fast with the window and painting. Similarly, adding the miniatures was a quick process. The longest part was making the kitchen counter, but since it wouldn't be front and center I didn't need to spend too much time making it perfect.
As you can see from the picture, I didn't even finish painting the counter or add wallpaper to that side because you won't be able to see it anyway once the walls are in. I really only needed to worry about the portions you could see through the doorway. (Fun fact: my mom's favorite flower is a yellow rose, and her favorite food is cookie dough. So I included those in the kitchen) This portion wouldn't have any lighting, either, since it would be night. The only light would come through the window.
Now, back to my wallpaper problem. One day I was over at my parents' house, and I noticed the kitchen walls had yellow wallpaper on them. Well, I already knew they did, but I noticed it and thought it'd be perfect to use in the book nook. I asked my dad if he had any leftover. I wasn't hopeful, because they wallpapered their kitchen decades ago. But what do you know, he had one roll left. So I was able to take it and use it for the book nook, which I thought was fun because this nook would end up in her kitchen where the yellow wallpaper is. Here's the first wall I made:
This wallpaper worked perfectly. I'm talking *chef's kiss.* Thanks, dad, for kind of being a hoarder. Next was adding the walls and trim:
We'll get back to that back wall in a minute. But one thing I've learned about making a book nook look larger on the inside than it is on the outside is covering up all the inside seams. Visible corners where the walls come together give a concrete knowledge of the space. I try to cover up as much of the corners and inside seams as possible to trick the eye. For this one, I added tulle (weirdly enough my mom's favorite type of ribbon) to the edges of the sewing room:
Once that was done, adding in the miniatures was quick work:
Now for the back of the nook. I wanted the window to look out onto a nighttime sky. I started out with just painting the back wall:
You can say it...it's pretty underwhelming. I didn't love it. Ideally, I would have loved to use fiber optic LEDs to make the stars. But I am definitely not at a level to do that sort of lighting yet. Thankfully, a trip to the craft store produced the most perfect fabric to cover the back wall with:
Not realistic, but definitely whimsical. You can only see a small portion through the window, but it ended up being perfect. At this point I was ready to put everything together and paint it. I've learned that putting a coat of Mod Podge on the outside as a base coat before spray painting is the best way to paint the outside (which is the smooth side of hardboard).
I was ready to do the exterior. However, when I went to test the lights, the back window fairy lights weren't showing up. Somehow they'd gotten tangled up in the fabric, so I had to carefully pry open the back to fix them securely around the window:
Instead of gluing them at the top, I glued them all around the window. This produced the lighting effect I wanted. I was also able to reglue the back on with minimal damage to the outside.
Once that hiccup was fixed, it was onto the exterior! I'm going to let you in on a little secret: this book nook wasn't going on a bookshelf. *Gasp* I know, is it even a book nook if it isn't on a bookshelf?! I think, just this once, we can make an exception. Anyway, my mom wanted to be able to see it, so she planned to put it in her kitchen (where she spends most of her time). Because of this I wanted to add a little pizzaz to the outside, instead of just painting it and leaving it. And what adds more pizzaz than bedazzling? *Digs around for giant box of jewels*
I should have named this the Bedazzled Book Nook. Anyway, my mom is an appreciator of bling, so I knew she'd like this design. Also, because her kitchen is a tropical, flamingo-themed paradise, I added some mini flamingos to the front:
And that, my friends, is how I made my mom a book nook. She has seen it and is thrilled with the results. She can't wait to put it in her kitchen. I'm happy I could make something special for her. After all, I love my mama.
I absolutely love it!!!! You really pay attention to detail with this project. Well done!!!