Flourish & Blotts

There was nearly an 8 month pause for the kitchen remodel.  During that time my folks came home from their mission in Uruguay and my dad helped me kick-start this bedroom project back into high gear.  Most of what follows has happened in the last month.

My dad helped get the shell of the bookshop's bay window ready for finishing.

I had made the the books months before and was so excited to get a glimpse of what the finished project would look like that I staged it within a few hours of painting the wall.  Gilderoy Lockheart and his book collection front and center!

I thought the bay window was a little plain so I added more decorative wood trim and corbels underneath.  This picture also shows the window complete over the door.  I also felt that it was all too yellow so I ended up repainting the bay and the door a brown color (see future pics).

Next was to stencil the Flourish & Blotts logo.  I had to pull out all of the books, curtains etc. to get ready for more painting.  Making this sign was a really extensive & time consuming process but the end result was well worth it!  1st I applied transfer tape to the sign area.  Then I found a logo that was similar to the F&B logo from Universal and sized it for the sign in Photoshop.  I printed it out and then traced the backside of the lettering with a graphite pencil, adding embellishments to the logo to help it match the Unviersal Studios version more closely.  Then I measured and taped the printed logo to the transfer tape and rubbed a pencil across the printed letters which caused the pencil outline on the backside to rub off onto transfer tape.  From there I cut out the outline of the logo and spray painted the exposed areas with gold paint as shown in this picture.

The end result was this.  But the original logo had 2 sets of crossed quills so after this dried added those.

Added more transfer tape and stenciled on the quills as described before.

Cut out the quills and painted them.

Viola!  The sign is finished.

Here it is with repaint.  I also added 4 panels to the door to make it look more like and outside door.  I played with several methods of distressing/aging and came out with a look I was fairly happy with.

Next was to add lighting.  I took 12 volt LED lights and taped them to some stiff wire so I could aim them where I wanted.  All of what you see here will end up being hidden under some cloth and will shine through this shelf to illuminate the books on the lower part of the bay window.

These are the upper bay LED lights.  Stiff wire in a candy cane shape to allow me to aim the light better.

Lights on and window in.  Looking good!

Added the roofing.  Now to age the wall.

3 squirt bottles with different colors and a few rags make this wall look 200 years old.

And here is my 1st wall done with a few minor exceptions.  I still need to add the cross hatching in the window.  I am debating adding a rain gutter drain spout to add to the outdoor look, and I may add a hanging sign.  But I will revisit those possibilities later.  For now I am moving on.

Prepping Olivander's Wand Shop.  I plan on stacking most of the black area bottom to top with wand boxes as though they were shoved into the front window for display.  most of them will be faux boxes but a few will be real 1/2 open boxes with some of them revealing wands.

A wand I made using a chopstick, some wood beads, hot glue, and paint.  You can also get a glimpse of the potion bottles we had collected for Slug & Jigger's Apothecary.

We begin wrapping various cuts and sizes of wood into what will be a large stack of wand boxes.  We will add labels to these and antique them to add to the aging effect.

Added the street lamp.  I was going to wait til after I had painted but we needed the light.  I'll have to take it down to paint later.

The beginning framing of Slug & Jigger's Apothecary.

That is as far as I have taken it.  We are up-to-date now.  Things are coming together and I hope within a couple months to be able sign off on this project.  But the devil will be in the details.  Details take time, and my only time is nights and weekends.