#robotime kit

Well, this little counter sure is cute! And just about the right size. Buuuuut ….

They wanted me to put the door handles right on the flat of the cabinet? That doesn’t seem right. Let’s give that a little depth.

More coffee stirrers and Woodpile pieces, cut to fit and glued on. That’s pretty easy.

Yesterday was too wet to be out planting things, so Chick was delighted that I finally finished building her her very own greenhouse. (And I’m trying to contain my jealousy!)

The chairs in this kit are adorable, but they’re going to be way too small for my Critters. Time to see what we can do about that!

After measuring the original pieces, and comparing them to a Critter-sized chair’s measurements, I built new pieces from craft wood. Critter chairs are about 1.6x the size of the Robotime chairs. A little fudging is okay here, as long as the pieces fit together.

Here are the fully-assembled and painted Robotime chairs, and some of the up-scaled pieces. I had to adjust my smaller set of legs because like a fool, I didn’t measure that piece before I cut. Luckily it was too big, and I was able to cut it smaller.

The seats are made of a flat piece of wood, with trimmed-and-sanded coffee stirrers to make the slats. They’re a bit sturdier than the originals, which are only one laser-cut piece.

I hand-drilled some tiny holes to indicate where the screws would be on the back, if it had them.

And voilá! Critter-sized chairs!

Ugh, the fit on that half-circle window. Wood filler didn’t cut it. I used Games Workshop Green Stuff to fill, then there was lots of sanding and repainting. But look how nice it all turned out!

I left one of the pictures off the wall. It felt a little too cluttered to me. I also didn’t make the ‘executive toy’ because I didn’t like the beads that were provided. I liked the rest and built the entire remainder of the kit. Of all of it, I think the lamp was the most fun, although also difficult. Wire is something that I’ll need to spend more time with. I may also want to replace the paper carpets with a nice fabric sometime in the long run.

I feel very proud of doing the electrical work so that it lights up. I’ve done a tiny amount of that before, but this was all by myself, and the instructions were good enough that it wasn’t difficult. I love that that was an option and that I got to do it.

Just a quick dump of backlogged photos from working on the office kit. I have been having so much fun!

I originally got the kit to teach myself how to do upholstery — or at least start to learn. I’ve learned a lot so far, and not just from that. I definitely could use some pointers on how to work with wire — that’s been the most difficult part of the kit for me so far.