Chest of Drawers for BJD (1:4, MSD scale)

This was a project I had meant to tackle more as a personal accessories box for myself. It used to hold my hair clips, rubberbands and rings, basically the only accessories that I wear, though I have stopped wearing rings after I started working with clay. After Clover arrived, all her little clips and hairbands needed a storage space, not to mention the spare clothing I'll eventually make for her :P

This is what it used to look like in its past life XD My father had bought some mooncakes about 2 years ago, and I told him I would like to keep the box for my little trinkets. It has not seen that much use, and when I started fussing about looking for a good place to store Clover's accessories, I suddenly remembered that this would make a perfect storage space! Whipped her out of storage and plonked her against it to check if the height would look good/to scale. It does!!!

I went to work on this on CNY's eve, when I had an opportunity to in between preparing for reunion dinner. Took apart the box, which was relatively easy as it was held together by, i think, latex/shoe glue or similar. the trickier bits were the embossed paper that wrapped and held the box together. i had contemplated painting it, but me + paint = disaster waiting to happen. so i tried my best not to cut myself. *tried my best*. -tried my best-. you'll see why later, i hope you aren't squeamish :P

it was a frustrating and time-consuming process though, I had thought to myself many times that it might have been easier to scratch build a chest of drawers, but the process revealed to me how it was constructed, so that was a necessary evil.

 had a stash of scrapbooking papers, and back then, green wasn't my fave colour, so I had left them virtually untouched. with Clover, I have a chance to use it all up XD

Decided to use doublesided tape for every single part of this project.  

wasn't too difficult, didn't need to take that many measurements either, just sort of 'winged it'. there were a few mistakes, but i didn't mind so much as this isn't for sale, and I don't think anyone else would care to take a closer look XD

stickstickstickcutcutcut....many hours later.........TADAH. looking good!

(btw you probably already know you can click on my photos to have a closer look)

((just don't look too closely ok))

I wanted to give it legs as well, so it would look like a real life chest-of-drawers, and not a pastlifemooncakeboxchest-of-drawers. Used some wooden blocks purchased from Daiso!

test fit! and thus concludes Day 1 of the chest of drawers.

although the shelving portion looked pretty good by itself, and because I had a slight run-in with the penknife, I was tempted to leave it as-is. But of course, I couldn't leave this unfinished. so I pushed on the next day while waiting for my cousins to visit.

((man. i think i run through at least 10 pcs of bandaids a year. which is a pretty good record methinks. hrm Asuka might have beat my record on that. or maybe Chun. HRMMM XD))

It took me a while to figure out what sort of drawer pulls to have. Often, when I have personal projects, I don't bother to go specially shop for materials, and try to improvise with my own stash. However, most of my stuff is for smaller scales, and after going through my boxes of materials, decided to go online and seek inspiration. just a quick glance at the first page of google images on 'drawer pulls' and immediately I had an idea of what I could make from scratch with some dowels and bamboo skewers! ^ ^

here's my jig, i don't have any fancy woodworking stuff, even my stupid plastic mitre is inaccurate and rather cumbersome to work with. rely mainly on a razor saw and lots of sanding.

also stuck a piece of sandpaper on one of the dowels that was to be for the drawer pull, so that I could sand the other part of the handle (the perpendicular one that attaches the handle to the drawer itself) down so it fits snugly (or as snugly as possible) to the handle. not pictured is the little pins i used....forgot what it's called, to help strengthen the joint?


(btw never ever ever work with sharps when you're tired! of course, I never ever ever heed my own advice.......and I'd run out of bandaids so I taped a cotton pad around my finger to staunch the bleed XD). for those who are squeamish about wounds, please skip the next photo :P

SQUEAMISH PEOPLE DO NOT....ah it's not that bad, THE DRAMA QUEEN STRIKES AGAIN

:P

I initially used just wood glue and that pin thingamabojingy, but i figured it wouldn't be strong enough to withstand my constant use, so I reinforced the joint with 5-min 2-part epoxy (you can get it at any hardware store).

used a hole punch + hammer to put holes in the front, another scrapbooking paper for the front (i even made sure to line up the design in the order it was cut from the sheet :P ) then used lego pieces to make sure the handles were all evenly set in place while the epoxy glue set. it's still kinda shaky as the holes were a tad large....will sort that out another day (probably never XD at least until the handles fall out). I guess if I were to improve it, I would construct the pull portion a little better, but whatever. it is serving its purpose now :P

I love how it turned out  :) 

even chanced upon a pen holder that might work either as a rubbish bin or laundry basket XD

I put it all in her new 'room'! apologies for the crappy photos, new space = me having to figure out all the lighting stuff :( GRAGHGHGHHGGh

She has a dollhouse too!!! a 1:48 dollhouse is perfect as a 1:12 version of a 1:4 dollhouse (uh yeah, that's how the math figures out :S)

and here's just a rough setup. I've since put more stuff in that she could use...so it's a lot more crowded and messy now XD

OKAY! Hope you've enjoyed this lengthy post. Comment please, so I don't feel as if I'm always talking to myself T_T