Rio Lobo adobe room box

I think this is my 5th room box or dollhouse using styrofoam. One house was built of builders' foam, another was carved from a styrofoam block, the rest using styrofoam used to pack products shipped to my home.

My first choice to recycle my stack of styrofoam sheets was to make a southwest adobe house, but I just couldn't come up with a design I liked. Every plan I drew up wound up including a walled patio, a garden, etc., but I wanted to keep a more compact footprint. That's why I wound up making an Alpine style stone house.

Here's a picture of one of the rooms in John Wayne's movie Rio Lobo, that inspired me to make this project.

 I really liked the hearth in this one, and I had miniature chairs similar to those in another adobe house in the movie. Also, I had previously tried making an adobe brick wall using a woodburner on styrofoam which looked quite nice.

I decided to make a southwestern room box using styrofoam to simulate adobe brick walls. I had just enough 1/2" thick styrofoam for 3 walls, which I planned on gluing to 1/8" thick birch plywood. I had my walls all cut out when I ran into a problem. Using a piece of the 1/2" styrofoam that was left over, and taking woodburner in hand, I began to practice making the adobe bricks. It didn't work like it did last time. I was flummoxed till I finally realized that the styrofoam I used before was denser than the stuff I was using now. This time instead of nice delineating lines, I had a mess of deep gouges. I even went so far as to heat a palette knife over a candle, still too hot, still a mess. This is why I had to give up on part of my vision and go with smoothed out adobe walls. I must say, I was really disappointed.

I matched the wall color to a photo I found online of an old adobe wall, using a mixture of acrylic colors of a color called Georgia Clay, Camel, and Warm White. It looks too pink in these photos, much better in person. 

The floor is meant to represent an adobe earthen floor that would have been waterproofed with oil. I used a plaster skim coat first, then painted the floor with a mixture of the clay color with Milk Chocolate and a touch of Asphaltum. The paints were all by Americana and Folk Art.

The hearth was carved from a block of styrofoam, and I made the cupboard from scratch. I took apart an unfinished Town Square table and redid it to make the kitchen table.

I started by putting the work table into the microwave and zapping it till the glue melted enough so that I could pull the pieces apart. I usually check my pieces every 10 seconds or so. I've done this quite a few times, and once a piece got too hot in the microwave and got badly singed. 

Once the pieces were cool I sanded the glued areas smooth, then cut the bottom stringer to length and made a new table top, then glued the whole thing back together.

I used Stiffy fabric stiffener to make the curtain in the doorway and the one covering part of the cupboard's bottom half.  I still need to make a work table for the right hand wall, then I'll be moving on to accessories, I've gathered quite a few already.

The hearth is carved out of a piece of styrofoam packing. As I mentioned in a previous post, styrofoam can be sanded by using a fine sanding pad, always stroking in one direction, much like you'd pet a cat. Sand styrofoam back and forth and it can start to crumble off bits on you.
To make the indentations for the oven and fireplace I used my woodburner like a carving knife. Areas that lost a bit too much in the carving were filled in with drywall joint compound, then sanded gently till smoothed down. Since the oven and fireplace area were going to be painted black, it didn't matter if the backs of them were still a bit rough, as they wouldn't be noticeable.

In addition to the cupboard and kitchen table I also made a work table and a couple of small shelves. I wanted the linen towel drying on the rack to look damp and crumpled, so I dampened a one ply piece of facial tissue with watered down white glue, then carefully slipped it onto the rod and let it dry.

The rag rug in the corner of the room was one I found in my stash of older stuff I made. It was my first attempt at making one, and I stitched embroidery floss together with my sewing machine. Later I made another rug using an easier method by gluing the threads to a backing of gauze. Here's a link to that tutorial.

I needed some clay pottery for the room. I have assorted jugs and bowls in my stash, but all of them have a shiny glaze. What's a mother to do?

I turned to cheap wooden bowls bought at the craft store. First I sprayed them with Krylon matte finish to seal them, then I painted or colorwashed them in a clay color. When dry I sprayed them with more matte finish. One tiny bowl cracked, but after it dried it shrank back and the crack became barely visible.

I also used the matte finish spray to tone down the shine on another jug. The small jug on the kitchen table is still very shiny, but the bigger jug on the hutch counter was sprayed and looks quite different.
This picture shows a before and after version of a jug. I sprayed one jug with matte finish, then painted it. I liked the mottled effect on the jug I painted, so I left it with just one coat of paint. When it was dry I sprayed it with 2 coats of matte finish.

I'm very pleased with the way this next jug came out. I had some unfinished white vases that had just the right shape. Then I looked through my button can to find one that would make a nice lid with a handle.

First I painted the vase the same adobe pink I used for the walls. I also painted the button after spraying it with matte finish to make the paint cling better. When dry I glued them together, then
covered them with a wash which was composed of a dab of milk chocolate colored acrylic paint thinned with a generous amount of water.

The Ceiling

To make the peeled log beams I started scruffing up a wooden dowel with my dremel, but after I painted on color washes of  burnt sienna and gray, and smoothed down the raised wood fibers, (which didn't look good), I could barely see what I'd done with my dremel. I decided to just stick with the color washes.
The sticks that form the rest of the ceiling were made by cutting bits off a whisk broom. I used a whisk broom to make a palm thatch roof for my Caribbean Cottage, and had part of a small broom left over. I gave a section of straw a coat of burnt sienna craft paint, then cut bits off to the correct length. To stick the straws to the ceiling, I thinned some white glue with water and brushed it onto the ceiling, a small section at a time.

Here's a picture with the acrylic front panel in place. I used the acrylic from a cheap poster frame that I bought with a 50% off coupon, and cut it to size with my Proxxon variable speed scroll saw.