Furniture: A diva's day bed. The frame

 

Hello my friends,

In my last post on the dressingroom you could see the card stock 'yogamat' lying on the floor of the room. It was a place holder for the day bed I want to make for this room. 

In my mind this room is a cosy place for Belle to retire to during the day when she feels like doing so. In her day this day bed is almost a 100 year old heirloom. But too comfy to replace it. Since noone will (dare) enter this room uninvited (not even Carel Polyander), there is no need for the interior to be fashionable nor impressive. Just cosy and personal. 

I have a kit for a House of Miniatures Chippendale style day bed. Notwithstanding the quality of the kit, I do not like this model. But the cabriole legs are great. Taking these as a starting point, and finding two more matching corner legs to replace the straight legs belonging to the kit's back rest... well, the game was afoot!

I'm so happy that I found the needed cabriole legs! Normally I sand them to round off all the cornersI.  But here I chose not to do so. Because I needed some straight sides to fix the stretchers to with glue.

Here I'm using street ahead spindles as stretchers between the legs add some support. I choose these particular spindles because of their length of 5 cm (+/- 2 inch) and their thickness of only 3 mm. Most spindles of this length are thicker. They probably work as well but I like the more delicate look of these.

After the woodglue has dried, I need to paint the wooden parts of the frane that will remain visible. And because the woodglue will prevent me from staining this piece in a nice uniform colour, I will paint it. And for the colour scheme I want to use the cream base colour with the crimson coloured decorations like I did on this small table with a leg turned by me already a few years ago. 

The cream colour is the tough bit to recreate because it is a mixture of paints I did not write down at the time. I know the colours used. But not the exact quantities of each colour. After some trial and error I have come very close to the original colourmix. If I may say so myself.

I test it on a new table top first. Because I have always felt that the original round table top was too small for the table. This small oval table top from a mini mundus kit is larger and I think it is better suited on this table. 

After the coat of paint on the oval table top has dried, I add another tiny tiny bit of cadmium yellow to the mixture and paint the frame for the daybed and repaint the table top.  When dry, I sand it, clean it, and give the frame a second coat of paint. 

When that coat of paint has dried as well I start decorating it with Alizarine Crimson. (Mind you, could that not have been a great name for a witch in Harry Potter!) I started with the design on the right leg. And then painted a variant on the left leg. The decoration on the right looked too much like a squished scorpion to me. So the one on the left it will be. 

The decorations on this frame, Just as with the small ocasional table are inspired by William & Mary pieces. And now it is time for the upholstery! But that is for the next post!

Huibrecht