Tag: customization

Let’s wire her up!

The correct touch sensor wire finally arrived from China. With that, I could finally finish my Sherlock Booknook. I was a bit nervous. Sealing it up meant I couldn’t keep tweaking it. It meant I couldn’t pop off walls for good photos. It meant calling it done. Finite. And there were still a few minor tweaks. I needed to fix the trap door. Cover where the battery opening shows in the hall. I could do that with the suitcase by the clock, but then what would I put where that had been to cover the glue spot on the floor?

It took a bit, but I finally dove in.

Why is the wire still barely long enough? I have a whole wad of light cords but this guy has to shortcut behind the staircase to reach. Also, wiring it up first meant that I couldn’t keep laying the top to the side while I worked…

It is FINISHED

Introducing… SHERLOCK THE BOOKNOOK.

Standing at a short 9.1 high x 4.3 wide x 7.1 inches deep, she is tiny. Her upper floor is less than 5 inches of ceiling height. She is tiny but extremely mighty in detail.

Notice all side have been customized to the show. With heavy coats of modpodge sealing everything. Finishing it all off is a lining or fine faux leather trim across all edges. So soft to the touch and nice clean sealed edges. Even a lovely cushioned leather edge to sit on. While the graphics, a show poster on the back and the opening credits scene on both sides, have been printed in black and white, I selected a brown 1/4 inch faux leather bias trim for the edges. This is because it wasn’t available in black. Or for other reasons you may choose to insert here.

A Conversion

As stated in other posts, this kit is a conversion. I don’t have the skill to start from scratch, so I chose a generic “Detective” Booknook (The Rose Detective Agency by Cutebee) to convert to reflect the amazing show: BBC’s Sherlock.

I fucking nailed it. Obviously, it is not Sherlock’s flat from the show. However, I like to think if Sherlock moved, this could be his new place.

Also note my elimination of the very generic “The Detective House” and flowers across the front. Fuck flowers, this is Sherlock. It has been replaced by a hand rolled clay brick facade. Did I need to cut and paint all those bricks individually? No. Would I do it differently if I were to do it again? Perhaps just making one piece and scoring it to look like brick? Yes. I would.

It is slicker and cleaner. I flipped the front plate to have the fancier steampunk bobble at the top. It’s better like this. Also, you’ll note yet another iteration of the chandelier to replace the “Detective” sign above the desk. We’ve had a few iterations, but we ended up somewhere good.

Baker Street

Let us start our tour at Baker Street. The entrance to Sherlock’s new apartment. Er, flat. In this kit, the upstairs is surprisingly sparse, but the alley is pretty full. I basically did what they did, just better.

I got out paint. Some flat wood items were replaced for fake flowers, sculpted broken clay pot pieces, a tiny plastic gun that would fit on a dime. Old wanted posters were replaced with easter eggs for the show and PlayBills. The address and road name were corrected.

There are few changes here from the last iterations. Both from seeing the side-by-sides in my last post. I trimmed the flower bushes by at least half. I also made the color a yellow cast in the alley. This really makes the hallway stand out and gives it a seedy criminal vibe.

For the yellow glow and the chandelier upstairs, I used the same technique. I took a small acrylic ring I had a pack of already laying around. For the chandelier, I printed stained glass and glued that along the ring. For the alley, I placed the ring in the middle of a orange cupcake wrapper and glued the edges up. Both are attached above their LEDs with hot glue.

The Hidden Hall

Changing the alley light to yellow, really makes the inner hall and stairs pop. There are a few easter eggs for fans in here too. I solved my battery door and stray sharpie mistake by placing a suitcase at the bottom of the stairs next to the umbrella stand. Happy Accidents as Bob Ross would say.

The hall table still has the package and letters Mrs Hudson left for Sherlock to retrieve. Including an ominous beige envelope with Moriarty’s red wax seal.

The Upstairs Flat

Here we reach Sherlock’s (new) main room. You’ll see I added a LOT to this booknook. It seems like the original is a bit sparse for a booknook. Also that chair is terrible. So lets look at mine.

The first thing you will notice is the comfy sitting chair for reading newspapers. Also someone’s newest interesting book, “The Mind Palace.” The newspapers are piling up because Sherlock can’t be arsed to clean. The table holds only a tiny hand gun in case Sherlock gets bored and wants to shoot things or needs to quickly call the police.

The next area you’ll notice is the desk in the corner. The pile of mail in front is where it falls as Sherlock enters his flat. It stays there until Mrs Hudson cleans it up, even though she insists she is not his maid. Lots of easter eggs here. It looks like Sherlock has “confiscated” Watson’s laptop again. Of course he has his trusty phone by his side and his skull to talk to (in spirit – I know, it’s just a print).

This iteration sees a much slimmer laptop. It still displays my favorite scene from Season 2 Episode 1 where Sherlock unlocks Irene Adler’s phone. It’s my favorite episode. Now that the box is sealed, a lot of the easter eggs can only be spotted by a vigilant eye from the clock cut-out above.

The secret passage is also fully functional. Where it used to lead to a medieval stone hall and wooden door lit by candle, we now have a city fire escape. You’re welcome.

If we look to our left, we see the dressing table and the entry door. This is where Sherlock chose to draw his new smile (in the yellow paint from the can of evidence in the Blind Banker, season one). Where it used to be on the wall, he still enjoys shooting it on the door when he is bored.

More tiny seed beads beads capping vials and a flask (made from beads) add a bit of depth to the flat shelving by his desk. The purple shirt of sex is represented in scarf form.

Lastly, looking to our right, we see Sherlock’s case board. He’s tracking Irene Adler, Moriarty, and is for some reason concerned about Mycroft.

Watson’s old medical cane is in the umbrella stand. Lots of easter eggs for a few shows here. The taxidermy bat moved from his fireplace to above the clock. I also spent a lot of time adding depth to this flat bookshelf. The bottom shelf I completely cut the books out to add depth I could fill. I capped the bottles with more seed beads to add texture. I also placed a few 3D books to fill the dark holes behind the 2D printed ones on other shelves.

That’s all she wrote!

So there you have it. I’m done. Booknook number 2 is complete! It was such a fun journey. I’m thrilled with the end result. I learned a lot too while doing this one. It was really fun to stretch it out and savor it with customizations and tedious little projects (baking and painting tiny bricks, anyone?).

I’m so proud!

Make sure to check out my previous posts on this build for fun details you might have missed.

Sherlock Booknook: Part 4

Posted on April 3, 2024 | by cursingcats.com | 4 Comments

Previously:

FIRST, let me start by saying THIS IS NOT FINISHED. It’s about 80-85% Finished. There are still some things I need to add and some things I want to tweak and change. I’ll talk about more in this post. The reason I had to pause was… The touch activate wires are too short to hook up. I was finalizing assembly last night, and yeah. It’s MAYBE 1/3 of the length it needs to be. I’ve contacted customer service to ask for a replacement. I hope they come through. If they don’t, I’ll ask M how to extend the wires I have. I’m fairly certain I can just snip them and insert a length of wire and connect to either end, but I’d want to ask and electrical engineer first.

This is a good reason that I might order from their website direct next time. Direct support. Even though I used their official Amazon store front, hey might not help me out. If I had ordered direct from their site they would. So yeah. Magical Pharmacy might be a direct order.

Anyway, for that reason, the project is on hold. It’s also at a good pause state. I can look at it and see what I want to tweak and change. I can ponder…

It’s not even fully assembled yet. If I sealed it, I wouldn’t be able to wire in the sensor. I also plan to completely redo the outside of the box and haven’t even decided what I’m going to do for that. It has to be black and white because that printer is much better.

In the mean time, I decided that since I can’t showcase it yet, I’d show you a lot of my edits by using side-by-sides of the original. I’ve taken all the original shots from the CuteBee website. Except for one that came from Amazon Reviews. I really want to show yall how heavily I have edited this kit. It’s a “6 hour” kit. I’ve spent days on it already. Maybe even 6. Most things, like the paintings and even the books, were printed on the structure, and I’ve changed most of that shit. So for those unfamiliar with this booknook, I can show you with these side-by-sides!

Move-In Time!

Last night, I finally got to work on the upstairs. The excitement was exhilarating LOL. I spent a whole night cutting paper just for this. I made tiny Amazon packages (there’s a quarter in that picture for scale). I made a laptop and cell phone from scratch. I spent hours image searching and shrinking newspapers, paintings, photos, envelopes, letters, folders, book covers. I went to Hobby Lobby with K for little bits. I ordered shit from Alibaba for gods sake. I’ve been waiting over a month to do this.

The time has come. I had already assembled all the furniture. Time to put it together and for Sherlock to move in!

Rather than follow the instructions and decorate the furniture before placing it, I placed everything first. I’m doing my own decorating so I needed to see how it flowed and where I wanted things. It’s strange that in the original nook, the chair is the center of attention. I expected that in mine as well. But it turned out the desk is the center of attention in mine. So good thing I did the furniture first.

Baker Street

You’ve mostly seen Baker Street from my previous posts. But you haven’t seen a side-by-side! The only new things since last post are the fire hydrant, the lamp post, hanging lanterns, and the walls being up. Oh and I changed out the weird old vintage note on the bench for a modern letter. I added a little forensics book too. OH! And I glued down the toy gun I got!

A few things to note here. 1) It’s a lame crime scene, I know. But I had to use what the kit had, remember? I’m editing a kit, not building from scratch. You’ll notice the flowers in the back are changed from wood to 3D. I already showed you the updated signage on the walls. And look at the difference the crime scene makes with with 3D stuff. I ditched the old-timey lantern too. My sculpted clay pieces and toy gun and flowers are killing the original.

Another thing. Do you see why I took so much time painting edges? Look at the original mailbox. The sides of the iron railing. LOOK AT THE FIRE HYDRANT. That fire hydrant is fucking adorable. Whoever designed that from 2D snap together pieces — fucking-a. Bravo. Well, done. But it’s more brown than red! You gotta paint the edges!

OPINION REQUEST: I want to make my LED less bright and more yellow like theirs. Any suggestions for what to cover it with? I was thinking wax paper?

The Hidden Hallway

Unlike the website, I can’t rip most of it off to photograph inside the stairwell, so I’ve done my best. Husband lamented that there’s so much effort and detail in there that you can barely see. But isn’t that the point of these? Tiny little worlds that beg to be explored?

I know, I already showed you the flowers and mail — but now you can see what it was before. Upgradde with a double D for a double dose of pimpin’. NOTE: It had a candle and a vase. I removed all candles from this build. They were everywhere. On the furniture, on the shelves. I excato-knifed them all out. Same as the street lantern. We’re modern now.

As with everything else, I had to replace all the pictures I wallpapered over. I wish I’d have saved the credits shot for the back wall. I found a few gorgeous London pictures and an adorable painting of a red phone box with a couple walking by with a red umbrella. Oh and I blinged out the frames in metallic paint. White cardboard my ass!

It’s All in the Details

This picture is to show you what difference a little paint can make. Look at their globe thing. Can you believe it’s the same as MY astrolabe? Yeah, no. Mines got metallic paint that makes it look like an astrolabe. Like the lines are there on purpose and not just because I made a sphere out of 2D pieces. The blue is also a shimmery blue with hints of purple in spots. I’d say the seed beads were for flair — but they’re recovery. This kit is pressed paper and I smashed the fuck out of the tip and end trying to get that round end piece on. HOW are you supposed to apply pressure to get them to snap together? There’s no where to hold or even put pliers! So I had to cut them off. I replaced with seed beads, Mine look better anyway.

I adore this astrolabe and typewriter. The typewriter was another case of too much brown from the edges. I painted it bright red. Then I was like… I have made a mistake. This aint a Kitchen Aid mixer. So I went over it with walnut stain. Perfection.

Stain, you ask? You’ll notice this throughout this thing. I bought a furniture scratch repair kit to do the edges. It was the cheapest way to get a ton of brown markers in a variety — plus I already started fixing some dings around the house. Bonus! I wish I found this before my husband noticed when I scratched the floor.

I obviously fucked this up at some point, and got stain on the front of one of the pieces. So then I had to stain the whole thing – cause you can’t wipe that shit off like paint. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. So every piece of shelving and furniture in this room has been stained over. It allows the under print to show though — but just looks less cheap. More real. And since it’s stain, it adds beautiful striations as long as you go with the grain the wood should have. I might get the black stain that came with it and go over some bits on Baker Street that I just did with black paint. So the shelves and stuff in my pictures look richer and darker for that reason, not photo trickery. Mines just better.

Let’s Get The Initial Shock Out Of The Way. THE FRONT.

SURPRISE! Now keep in mind — WORK IN PROGRESS. I’m still tweaking a lot. For instance, I already took stuff off the table by the chair because it blended in with my beloved mail pile too much.

So you can see my fucking AMAZING chair and footstool makeover. If you didn’t read that part, I used clay to sculpt it to be padded. Especially that pillow. Like don’t use that unmodded pillow yall. It’s taking away from the already bad chair. But I’m not done with it. I want to buy some clear matte-finish paint and make it not-shiny.

Deep in the background, you can see that I replaced the painting above the clock with a bat — like the taxidermy bat shadow box Sherlock has in the show.

There was also the case of that “Detective” sign. The kit is for a detective agency. So I guess he felt the need to advertise above his desk. I thought about making it white and putting “Consulting Detective” there since that’s how Sherlock introduces himself. But this is Sherlock’s house. He doesn’t advertise. I couldn’t get rid of it though because it’s a structure for an LED above the desk. So… A light fixture? I printed out some more modern options but went with an Applebee’s-flavored stained glass shade.

The only other thing I’ll note here is the colors. You can see that my brighter books, white paper prints instead of aged stickers, and color prints instead of old-timey black and white have modernized it just like I wanted. Old Victorian flat in modern times. I think I nailed it.

Sherlock’s Desk

I had so much fun with this area. I did not think this would be the main focus, but it totally turned into it. You can see I ditched a bunch of the kit’s stuff. The old phone, looking glass, feather quill, candle. Whatever that thing right behind his chair was. That’s where I put in a cameo for a pair of earrings. And next to the cameo is Dr Watson’s “A Study in Pink” which was his blog post of the first episode. With the skylight, you can get a good view of it and see the whole title.

We’ve got London A-Z which they used to solve the code in “The Blind Banker.” We got a laptop (yes, it’s too fat — but I made it from scraps of the kit and the pressed paper is thick). He’s got a whole bottle of brandy and an insanely tiny glass of brandy — they’re very shiny in person! He has has carelessly placed the glass on his papers which it has already stained. (Another happy accident, not on purpose. I had placed the glass on the desk and then decided it should be on papers. So I quickly pulled it up but the glue had grabbed a bit of the dark stain from the desk. Looks like spilled liquid around the rim).

Also, those papers were tri-folded like a real letter before gluing down. Of course, his trusty cellphone is there. The portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle is replaced with (a print of) the skull he likes to talk to that Mrs Husdon keeps hiding.

Hard to see at this angle, but there’s a stack of books shoved under the desk and one of his favorites leaning behind his chair.

Possibly my favorite bit of this build is the massive pile of deliveries and mail. Like he walks in the door and just throws it on his desk and it just piles there on the floor. He can’t be arsed to bother with his mail. And yeah, I made insanely thin strips of blue paper for Amazon tape but only used it on two boxes because it was a pain. But yeah, this is why I made all those envelopes. British envelopes and American ones with different colored stamps, some bills with prepaid labels, some colored cards. Perhaps cards from fans — perhaps little Kirsty asking him to find out what happened to the luminescent Bluebell.

Right Wall

Look, I’ve discussed it before – but god damn my case board is a masterpiece. The modern maps — the photographs of the characters from the show. The seed bead pins and fine thread tying it all together. And yeah, Jayne from Firefly is still there. And the little sticky note of Moriarty’s “I O U.” OK, this might be my favorite area. I’ve just had it around for longer. Now it even has the astrolabe, so yeah, it might be the best area. OK, it is. But the mail stack is new.

Note the difference the stain pens make on the furniture. I sanded down the cane and painted it to be Dr Watson’s medical cane he used for the psychosomatic limp he had before he met Sherlock. Can you spot River Song’s diary?

I love his pile of newspapers. He can’t be bothered to toss them when he’s done. I printed off lots of London papers to shrink down and fold up. Some are even under the stool, they’ve been there so long.

OPINION REQUEST: Should I add seed bead handles to the dark cabinetry?

Left Wall

I haven’t done the door yet. It was supposed to have a dart board on it but bleh. It also needs a door handle of some sort. I think I might do the spray paint smile that Sherlock did and shot up whenever he was angry. There was no where to do it on the wall paper, so I could sub the door. Only problem is he did it in yellow paint because it was the yellow paint they used as a clue in “The Blind Banker.” And yellow isn’t going to show up on that door. One option is switching the white and gold door for a black and gold door. It can’t be a color because I’ll need to use the better resolution of the black and white laser printer. And I can’t paint that fine detail on it. If I did THAT I could do it in yellow.

OPINION REQUEST: Black the door and do the yellow, or leave it white and use another color? If the latter, what color?

Then I’ll rough it up pretty good with the exacto knife like he’s shot at it a few times.

Oh and the purple scarf is there to represent the purple shirt of sex. If you were around when the show aired — Benedict Cumberbatch became a huge sex symbol. And when he wore that purple shirt — whoo, the internet was on it.

The Mail Stack

Just for funsies, the mail stack. It tickles me that some of the envelopes are First Class and he has no fucks to give.

Next Up:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 3

Posted on April 1, 2024 | by cursingcats.com | 4 Comments

Previously:

“What did you do last night?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“So you spent 2ish hours cutting out tiny envelopes and newspapers and folding them?”

“IT’S ART!”

“Did you realize your printer was not high enough res to actually show that you addressed those envelopes to Sherlock Holmes at his correct address?”

“Listen, it’s not my fault the printer sucks ass.”

“Also, you can’t tell that is a clip of your favorite scene on the laptop. And isn’t it going to face away from you, anyway?”

“I know it’s there.”

LOOK AT THE TINY CELLPHONE I MADE.

Next Up:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 2

Posted on March 29, 2024 | by cursingcats.com | 4 Comments

Previously:

Work on the Sherlock Booknook continues. Remember back in the first post? I’m using a Rose Detective Agency kit to make a Sherlock booknook. I’m gonna share the journey cause I am enjoying the HELL out of making little customizations. And what fun is doing it if I don’t show it off? And if you wanna feel like my husband, JOIN ME.

I was going to wait until the end to show it off. But 1, I’m taking a lot of time. 2, That would be a massive post. And 3, I can get better photos before the full assembly. So first, here is where we are currently. These next two pictures show that I’ve done most of the street and staircase area. Then I can go into details. This is… Like 3 sessions of work?

So in the above you can see the murder/case board — but I’m going to go into big detail on that in a bit. From the first post, you knew I redid the wallpaper. I’ll talk about the hall in a bit too. So you can see that I’ve made most of the street scene. I’m missing the fire hydrant and the streetlamp with the street sign. Those will come in later. Same with the hanging lanterns. I think those are the next step.

One thing I’ve been doing is painting the raw edges. The raw edges are brown because these are all flat pack, and basically 3D puzzles. So I think that makes a HUGE difference on the white parts (like the mailbox), and it makes the iron pieces in this kit better too. However, I did discover one really bad thing.

These kits are all available from multiple brands. They’re clearly drop ship items and some are better than others. For instance on Reddit, someone was asking about the same Garden House kit I made. Their instructions said to peel off the windows but they were confused because there was no film. Well, mine had film. She had the same instructions but a lesser quality kit. And on this one, I drew the short straw. This kit isn’t wood — it’s compressed paper. Now this has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages: The pieces are cut great. Extremely fine details. Also, the clicking things together is more secure. Since the paper has a bit of give, the “female” connections/holes are not perfectly square. They curve in a bit so they can be stretched ever so slightly when you click it together. I might not have even noticed except for a few things. So far only two connections have failed me. When I put together the globe (not seen, it will come in later) — I totally smashed the end. The fit was too tight and I tried to force it. More obvious though is the railing by the door. So the right railing wouldn’t go in all the way. I pushed and tried my best. I used pliers to try to get the force straight down. And… the paper structure failed. It buckled. Had it been wood, it would have snapped — so I’m not sure that’s that big a deal — but still. Ugh. So I straightened it out to my best abilities — wood would have looked better glued back together. I just had to commit to both railings being a little further out than they should be.

Another huge disadvantage to paper. It sucks up paint like nobody’s business. I’ve been using a metallic gold that it doesn’t suck in. If you’re using black, maybe 2 coats will do. It you’re trying to get it white though — 5 coats minimum. The first two coats will barely show. I bought paint pens to do this and the white paint pen was worthless. Too watery. Made no difference. Just soaked it right up. I switched to acrylic paint. That’s what you see in the pictures. Look at the mailbox — that’s like 5 or 6 coats of white acrylic paint on the edges and they still aren’t a solid bright white. Same on the front of the stairs, ect. Still worth it because I don’t like the dark edges showing. I think it even makes a difference on the windows and door cutouts.

So you can see, I corrected the house number from 210B to 221B, because this is SHERLOCK. I cut a piece of wood and colored it gold to make a mail slot on the door. I know it’s stupid because there’s a mail box but I just didn’t like that the door looked so… suburban house? Nothing like Sherlock’s door. So I needed some gold detail.

The paper in the mailbox is printed newspaper I rolled. Better than their sticker. I replaced all the 2D flowers with flocked flowers made for train sets. HUGE difference. Like upscaled the look by 1,000%. For the crime scene, I replaced the flat wood flower pot bits with clay bits I baked. And it’s not in place yet, but instead of the flat printed wood gun, I bought TOY GUNS. Yes. I ordered two 1/12 scale toy guns for action figures. They were like 90 cents each with $6 shipping. On thought just now, I could have ordered more for future projects, but whatever. It’s not in place yet because I have 2 different ones and I haven’t decided which will be upstairs and which will be in the crime scene.

I didn’t change much about the investigation kit because I thought it was super cute as is. I did add a more modern envelope tucked in the lid. I also didn’t use the smokers pipe. So to fill in the empty space, I threw in a few seed beads. I used the seed beads for a few things. They’re on top of the police bollards and as a doorknob. They’re pins in the case board as well.

Speaking of case board…

OH MY GOD! I’m so chuffed. And yes, I’m using the word chuffed because I’m just so tickled with myself. So you can see on the left here, I’ve shown you the original — I had to get a snapshot from a youtube video so sorry it’s not great quality. As you can see, the wall was originally green and the case board — like everything else was dingy toned down colors. I did take a picture of the provided stickers so you could see them better. TELL ME THAT’S NOT JAYNE COBB (Played by Adam Baldwin) IN THE BOTTOM CORNER. You cannot convince me it is not. That might even be Mal above him.

Listen, this is ripped off chinese drop ship crap. You know they’re just stealing images. Hell, on the side of the actual booknook there’s a typo. That’s fucking Jayne Cobb and I LOVE JAYNE. He’s my favorite Firefly character so he TOTALLY made it on the board.

Ehem. Ok. So, the case board. Well, like I said — I’m going for the exact vibe the show had — old Victorian with a current person in it. So Sherlock would use color. He’d use sticky notes. He’d use Google Maps. So I’ve got a modern map of London, a Google Map of best sites to visit, and a map of the Underground. From the show, I pulled Mycroft, Moriarty, and Irene Adler AKA “The Woman.” And yall, I am just taking my time and having so much fun with this. So yeah, I added seed beads for pins. Then I used a set of tweezers to thread red sewing thread between them like a real case board. Pro Tip — I printed all of these images on a good quality thick paper (though my color printer, obviously doesn’t print to a great quality at such small scale). To make these images show a bit more from each other when overlapping, I ran a sharpie over THE EDGE of the paper cutouts. //Pro Tip

Then the next time I worked on it, I was like fuck it, I’m adding Jayne. I also added a little tiny sticky note “stuck” to the picture frame with the “I O U” Moriarty left. So I’m really excited about this case board. It looks amazing. It’s from the show. It’s also got a lot of 3D going on with the pins and thread and now the sticky note stuck on the frame instead of the wall. Oh and because my wall is black and white, I made the background a color so it stands out. I went with green.

So, you can tell I added a lot of my own printed elements. Here. The above image shows two of the pages I created. I scanned in the original sticker sheet and wall boards to get the scale. Then I put that in photoshop and just started grabbing all sorts of shit and shrinking it down to the scale of the sticker sheet. Some of them are multiple sizes so I could see what I liked best. So yeah, that’s how I’ve got all these tiny things, if anyone wanted to ask. You can even see all the book covers I printed in various sizes so I could pick the ones that looked best. (Books were already shared in part one).

I also changed a few more of the “old” Victorian bits. You can see here in the wall “pieces.” The secret door behind the sliding bookcase was like a medieval castle door with a candle — that’s a city fire escape now. Scotland yard was a kid lighting the lanterns by hand. That’s just a cobblestone alley now.

Another problem was all the old-timey notices and wanted posters printed on the boards for the street area. So I thought about playbills and theater adds. So I just googled “Playbill” and found one for “Cats” (me) and “Beyond Therapy” which I thought would be a funny joke. Those went by Scotland Yard.

Now that bit of brick with the windows snuck up on me. I didn’t see it so I had not planned for it. But, I had printed a few extra things for my murder/case board that didn’t get used. So you can see I used the same two playbills, but replaced the plays with the graffiti-ed painting from “The Blind Banker” and one of the books I printed called “The Mind Palace.” So more references to the show. I had also printed the bit of graffiti the people were finding before their deaths that was a big part of the “Blind Banker” episode. So I put that up too.

And yall, I’m so tickled. I found an advert for Benedict Cumberbatch staring in London Theater’s Hamlet. So fuck yeah I put that in there. (Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock in the show I’m imitating here, for those not familiar with it). I had to put stuff on there to cover up the old shit anyway, so I used it to my theme advantage. And inside jokes.

So on the second night of assembly, I tweaked a few things. I took out the lantern from the crime scene and just covered that spot with more flowers from the broken pot. And I overhauled the table inside the window.

Originally, I put the table together as intended. It’s only seen though the window in the finished build, so why bother? I used the flat 2D flower vase and candle. But naw, we’re going all out — so I exacto-knifed that candle out. Now there’s more flocked flowers in the vase (I think the package I got had 10 colors. I mixed pink and yellow here because that’s Mrs Hudson’s space). And I covered where the candle had been with letters. Including one of Moriarty’s clues from “The Game” sealed with red wax. Oh and I made a tiny package. I know that’s USPS, but I don’t care. It’s an adorable little package Mrs Hudson left for Sherlock to pick up.

So the last thing I did last night was finish up this side wall and glue it to the main piece. As you can see, I had to replace the paintings in the stairwell that I wallpapered over. I used the shiny gold marker pen for frames, so I hope they shine in the LED when it’s lit. Do you see that picture on the left? Is that the scene in the BBC Sherlock’s intro? YES IT IS.

This is fun.

Next Up:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 1

Posted on March 23, 2024 | by cursingcats.com | 5 Comments

After finishing up the Garden House Booknook, I wanted to do another. I looked over the dozens of options. I narrowed it down to two. One I wanted to do for the details. The other, I wanted to do for the theme. I went with the theme. Specifically: Sherlock Holmes. So I got The “Rose Detective Agency” kit.

Now, am I going to allow all the generics to stand? Fuck no. It’s not “Rose Street,” it’s “Bakers Street.” It’s not 210B, it’s 221B. So if I’m gonna edit shit, we’re going in. We’re going BBC Sherlock. Because that was the BEST Sherlock. And I’m a huge Robert Downey Jr fan, but nope — BBC Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch. That’s where we’re going.

I obviously can’t completely remake it. I’d have to build it from scratch, and I don’t have those skills. But I can do what they did with the show. They didn’t take away the old Victorian Sherlock Holmes, they just updated it. So I’m doing that. I’m tweaking the kit here and there. It will largely be the kit, but with some upgrades.

For instance, look at this atrocious chair. It’s front and center. It’s so FLAT. Well, with a bit of clay and paint, I can make it better:

See? I couldn’t have made that chair from scratch. But with some clay and paint, I can overhaul it. I did good, eh? I impressed myself. And all the little books!

On the left, are the books that I haven’t edited. They came with the kit. On the right, are the ones I’ve redone. I wanted to add a few brighter colors and more modern looking books with the old — much like Sherlock’s flat. Do you see that first large book? London A-Z — that’s the book they used to solve the code in Season 1, Episode 2: “The Blind Banker.” A forensics textbook. The two pink ones are “A Study in Pink” — John’s blog of the first episode. Do you see River Song’s diary from Doctor Who? A joke on “The Mind Palace” and an actual book on the “The Smoker’s Dilemma” and the benefits of Nicotine. A joke on Sherlock’s nicotine addiction. Oh yeah, I painted the page edges white too cause I can.

Oh and did I spend the majority of my day using photoshop to remake the infamous BBC Sherlock Bakers Street Wallpaper? Of course, I did! And then, I meticulously cut pieces and used ModPodge to rewallpaper the flat in the nook. I was super careful to line up the pattern. What did you do with YOUR Saturday?

I’m having fun with it. I need to find more pictures and modern newspapers to replace the old school ones that came with it. I’ve already got some cool stuff for his case board from the show. Pictures of Irene Adler, Moriarty, Mycroft, modern London, a map of the Tube. This is fun!

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