Wands and Butterbeer for Everyone!

This is it.  The last Hoo-Rah.  I am FINISHED.  

Here is what I had left to do--

I spent several weeks making wand boxes.  This was the most arduous, pain staking, mind numbing, eye clawing, patience testing thing I have had to.  I thought Ollivanders would be a quite simple design.  Fill the shop glass with wand boxes.  Easy right?  Yeah, well 400+ wand boxes didn't come together in one night, or 5 nights, or 2 weeks.... it took the better part of an entire month of nights and weekends to put this shop together.  I made it through all 7 Harry Potter books on Audible in the time it took me to finish Ollivanders.   This picture show my gradual rising stack of  wand boxes.

Most of the wand boxes are faux fronts with only the side being full scale boxes.  Hopefully when it all comes together you won't be able to tell the faux ones.....

There is Ollivanders Packed to the hilt.  The top ones still need to be wrapped.

I added LED lighting at the base.  Not sure if I like but I'm leaving it for now.

Once all of the boxes were finished I spent several nights designing, printing, cutting, and applying labels.  at first I grabbed some pre-done labels from the web but I have so many wand boxes that I ended up making most of the labels myself to ensure a good variety.

I start applying labels.

Mod Podge was perfect for adhering and protecting the labels.

Sooooo many labels!

After all the labels were on I went back over all of the boxes and added dirt smudges, dust, and aging effects.

Ollivanders is stocked and ready.

Close-up pics to show some of the details of the boxes.  One box is opened, revealing the end of a wand.

More close-ups.  showing detail and variety.

Last thing I had to do was set the plexi-windows.  Somehow I managed to order 1 pane shy....  it would  be 2 weeks before the new pane would arrive so I moved on to my checklist of other finish items while I waited.

Katrina asked for more shelving in her nook.  (painted later).
I also added an escape door from Katrina's room to Cecily's so she would have a 2nd exit for safety.

Shara asked for more shelves too.  I also added fans and more venting for the nooks as they could get kind of stuffy after a while.

With more time to spare I decided to add a rat clambering along the roof of Flourish & Blotts.  Close examination would revealed a stumped right index finger.  Peter Pettigrew perhaps?

I added drain clamps to my downspout.  A small thing, but it really helped sell the appearance of an actual drain spout.

Ever since I finished Slug & Jiggers I felt like Flourish & Blotts needed.... more.  so I took the time to redesign it.  I added more books, candlesticks etc. 

I also printed a few fan-made replicas of the Quibbler and added a Hogwarts standard issue parchment quill and ink set for 1st year students.

Very happy with this redesign.

Last thing for F&B was to make a hanging sign.  I decided to try hand painting this one instead of masking and spray painting as I had done on the rest.

Finished product came out OK, but not thrilled with it.

Hung the sign anyhow... I am perhaps to harsh a critic of my own work.  It looks pretty good and definitely adds to the overall feel.

My bother cut out a laser etched replica of the leaky cauldron sign seen in the 1st movie which I hung on the hinge side of the door to the Leaky Cauldron (entry/exit of the room).

I painted the Leaky Cauldron door but it looked too bland so I decided to add a sign to it.  I used a snapshot of the movie version as inspiration for my own.

Screwed and glued it.  Added old fashioned nail heads made from warblas to cover the screws.  Then added water and rust stains to help it blend in.

My wife thought it was a shame that I had made this really nice looking wand and was hiding it away inside of a wand box in Ollivanders.  She thought some wands should be on display somewhere and I agreed but I couldn't fit any wands inside of the shop window.  After playing with several ideas I decided to make a few more wands to show off some of Ollivanders craftsmanship.

I used a sticking charm to add them right above his door.

I made another wand to stick inside of the wand box. That same day my last window piece came in so I was able to add my window pains as the last item on my checklist.

The window panes are in!  This room is COMPLETE!

There it is.  Pass through the door of the Leaky Cauldron to enter Diagon Alley.  Wands are stocked and waiting to choose their wizards at Ollivanders.  Fresh cut Gillyweed, Skelegrow, and Floo Powder are on display at Slug & Jiggers ,  The many adventure books of Gilderoy Lockheart can be found deeply discounted at Flourish & Blotts.  Stay clear of Knocturn alley though....That is one scary closet!  ;) 
 Diagon Alley is done.  Thank you to all of you who have followed along with me on this journey to make one little corner of my house a magical place in another world.

With the girls room being done, I took one last look around the room, turned to walk out, and was immediately accosted by my 3 boys.  "Dad!  Dad!  Dad!  Are you going to do our room now?"  There is no way out of this.  I had to agree that it was their turn now.  What theme to do now?

Lets just say......... it will take place.......... in a galaxy far, far away.....

Cobblestone or Carpet?

The pressure is now getting turned up to get the kids Knockturn Alley closet functional again but I had to figure out what I was going to for the flooring first. Flooring was such a dilemma for me.  Carpet would have been quick and easy but it would have really ruined the authentic look of the room.  I had it in my head that a cobblestone street was what I needed but adding real cobblestone was not an option and even faux cobblestone would be too thick. After all my head scratching, in the end I had resolved to go to Home Depot and by paint and just hand-paint a cobblestone look and lacquer it when done.  

So here I am in Home Depot talking with the paint guy, showing him pictures of my room in progress from my phone and some other guy is peeking over my shoulder and listening in.  Once the paint guy gave his advice and left, the spectator comes over to me and says "Hey, you can't do what that guy told you.  It would be such a shame.  I am a concrete worker and I think you aught to do stamped concrete".  After talking with him about it for a minute he gave me the name and address of his wholesale supplier and I went and talked with them.  The following pics show the results of my fortuitous encounter:

1st thing I had to do was remove all of the doors.

Next was to thoroughly clean the concrete.  I had been so careless  in protecting the concrete from paint splatters that this was quite an ordeal.  Several coats of paint stripper and acid etching and I still had areas that were not even close to a clean surface.

If you can't scrub off the grime.... GRIND it off.  My concrete grinder made short work of it but boy does it make a dusty mess!
With my concrete cleaned and prepped I was ready to start mixing, pouring, and stamping concrete!

I started back in the closet so I could try it out in the least visible area in case of mess-ups.  For my 1st go at it I thought it looked great!  OK, OK, so my FIRST mix actually came out in a semi-solid block the shape of my 5 gallon bucket because I mixed it too dry and had to throw it out..... but my SECOND attempt is what you see here.  ;P

Next I moved on out from the closet into the main area.  The milky liquid is a bonding agent to help glue the old concrete to the new.

Concrete is all spread out.  It is only about 1/4" thick.

The concrete distributor rented me the stamps which were rigid enough for me to kneel on while I worked.

Another view of the work in progress.

Final stamping.

This is turning out way better than I thought it would.

Justin wanders over to the house to see what's up.  I hand him the vacuum.

Now that the cobblestone is dry and clean it is time to add some color and age it.

After mopping the whole floor with one color I make 2 more passes with a bucket and hand brush, splattering on 2 different colors to add depth and variety.

That is a proper dirty cobblestone street!

Color is on.  Let it dry for a day then I seal it.

It looks much lighter when dried out.

This is the epoxy based floor sealer.  I will put one one good coat of this and then a coat of  one other type of sealer after. 

Brushing it on.  Apllying the sealer really darkened up the "dirt" again.

So, if you do not mix it well, or apply it too thick, it doesn't dry completely clear.  I told the distributor of my issue and he said a heat gun would help to clear up the milky spots.  I spent two whole evenings heating parts of the floor to clear up my misstep.  I used a drill and stirring rod to mix the top coat sealer and that worked perfectly.

So now with the floor done I am able to finish out the closet.

I had one blank wall next to Ollivanders that I thought needed something.  I thought posters plastered to the wall would fill the space.  Some searching online got me several authentic looking replicas of artwork from the movie to display.  I printed them out, cut them out, and layed  them out on the kitchen floor to see how it would look before I glued them up to the wall.

I used some spray glue on the back-sides of the posters and put them in place.  Oh, and see that hole I cut in the ceiling up there?  Several people had commented that the room was a bit too dark, so I ran electrical wiring from my existing street lamp to another part of the room where I added another lamp for better lighting.

Here is the newly added lamp.

It lights up the Ollivanders sign nicely.

I was concerned about how to protect the paper posters from wear and tear.  My wife introduced me to the wonders of Mod Podge.  I slathered the posters with the Elmer's Glue like substance which dried clear and gave the posters a nice protective coating.  I also covered my electrical wiring hole with an access panel in-case I should ever need to get up above again.

Posters include the 422nd Quidditch World Cup, wanted posters of Sirius Black and several death eaters, as well as one advertisement for the Weasley Twin's wildly popular Skiving Snackboxes.

My next project is to finish Ollivanders wand shop.  I think I said that in a previous post but I have procrastinated this one for as long as I could.  You can see in this picture that I have mounted my vertical window supports and have an ever growing stack of wand boxes ready to be set into place.  The plexi-glass is there as well (with the white protective film on it.).  I am actually almost done with the Ollivanders Wands project but decided to save those pics for my next post by which time it should be complete.

With summer in full swing, finding time to get this done has been difficult, but I have so many other things lined up that I must get this finished!  I am hopeful my next post will be my finale to this project!