Week beginning 16th May and week beginning 23rd May

Any stencilling left over was completed.

Rhyan made the frame for the love seat at home and brought it in. Rhyan, Vicky and myself then began to pad it out with foam. The frame had a base and legs made of wood, thin wood bent around the back to give it a curved shape and plastic tubing around the top to give it a curved edge. Foam was placed over the back of the inside and was cut to fit, before being fixed into place with a staple gun. this was repeated until all of the inside was covered. Any gaps were patched up with small pieces of foam and the space between the foam and the wooden back of the seat was padded out with excess foam and polystyrene. The foam was difficult to staple to the frame and it required several attempts.

We then began to upholster it. We started in the centre of the inside of the love seat, stapling the fabric to the plastic piping at the top, before making our way round the top edge and fixing the fabric to it. We then pulled the fabric taut down the inside and stapled it into the crease where the foam was stapled on the seat. The excess fabric was trimmed off. The front edge of the seat was covered in fabric, which was stapled both on the seat and underneath.

We then found that there was not enough length in the fabric to cover the back of the seat. To fix this we measured the outside of the back of the love seat and divided it by 3. We cut two sections of fabric long enough to cover 1 third each, and attached them to the top of the back of the seat (with the top folded over to make the join neater) using the staple gun. The fabric was then pulled taut down the back of the seat and stapled underneath the seat. the excess fabric was cut off of the bottom, and it was this that we used to cover the middle third of the back of the seat. This was attached in the same way. Where the legs got in the way, we cut a slit into the fabric and wrapped it around to the back of the leg. Rhyan bought some gold braid, which we used to cover the joins in the fabric. We attached it using a hot glue gun, and folded the ends over to make sure they didn't fray. Rhyan then stained the legs of the seat.

Vicky and I then began on the windows. We first made the frames by measuring the height and width of the windows. For each one we cut two lengths of softwood the same measurement as the height, and two lengths the measurement of the width minus the widths of the two height pieces, see diagram below.

The two vertical pieces were placed into the side

s of the gap, using another piece of pine facing the same way to mark how far into the window the frame would sit. The vertical parts of the frame were screwed into the flats at regular intervals. We had quite a bit of difficulty in screwing the tops in and we had to ask Simon for help. Abbie Whenary and Nicola McCue screwed two of these into place for us, but we had to re-screw the tops of these, as they were not flush with the neighbouring flats. The horizontal pieces then slotted in between, at the top and the bottom. They had to be fixed using small blocks of softwood which had two screws, one into the horizontal piece and one into the vertical piece. This was repeated for each window. Problems were encountered when measuring the wood, as none of the windows were of equal sizes, and the were different widths between the top and the bottom. However eventually we got the measurements correct.

We then measured up for the bars across the windows according to Vicky's design, with Simon's help. There were three verticals bars and 2 horizontal bars in each window. Thin pieces of softwood were used. The vertical bars were cut to the same measurement as the height of the window, plus 2 inches each end, and the horizontal bars were cut to the width of the window plus 2 inches at each end. The middle of the edge of each piece of wood had to be marked, so that notches could be cut into into them. These notches allowed the bars to fit together and fit onto the window frame. The notches we cut in the vertical bars are shown in fig. 1 and the horizontal bars are shown in fig. 2. The notches had to be at precise intervals so that they would match up correctly.

Fig. 1

Fig 2

The notches in fig. 1 are 46cm apart, and the notches in fig 2 are 19cm apart. The vertical bars were attached to the window so that every 19.5cm mark on the window frame matched up with the middle of each bar, these bars were then nailed onto the frame. The horizontal bars were slotted into place with the notches, which were glued in place, and were also nailed to the frame. Any apparent gaps were filled with car body filler by Rhyan, and once this was dry it was sanded down. We then used two coats of dark oak wood stain to stain each window.

The members of the group making the panelling changed its design in order to save time, using long strips of wood as the top and bottom horizontal parts, and shorter strips and the vertical. A dado rail was added along the top and a skirting board along the bottom.

Rhyan and Simon cut the wood for the floor and I helped to slot it into place.

We then carried all the furniture in and placed the knick knacks in their places. We were then taught how to light the set using lights, gels and various other things in order to animate the light. We learned how to used a video camera, including altering the aperture and ND filter.

We experimented with lighting the rooms. In the study we placed a large light outside the window, another that lit the room through the door, and a small one in the corner which was dimmed slightly to resemble the light from a candle. This looked effective. However, even when all of these lights were on and the aperture was fully open, the room was still a little too dark. Although this did make it seem more creepy, as was intended.

The drawing room was lit by two small lights from above, acting as chandeliers, and one large light through each window. This again made the room a little darker than was intended.

Overall I was very happy with the way the set turned out.