MY KID'S PLAYROOM WEEKEND PROJECT

Not Star Wars related, posted on another board, but I figured I show it here.

This is hardly worth posting on a prop building forum, and to be honest (and politically correct) probably the "un-manliest" thread in this entire forum, but I did it for my kids and figured I'd share. This was supposed to be a $100, 2 weekend project that ended up costing twice as much and took twice as long (so it goes!).

I wanted to build a tree in their play room to fit their flat screen TV and DVD player. I quickly learned this project was a bit too ambitious for my skill level, but it turned out OK and the kids love it, which is all that really matters. This was the first time I tried something like this.

I bought a cheap, $18.00 TV stand from Wal-Mart.



I cut a slot out of the back plate for the DVD player and mounted it to the front. I put a small piece of industrial strength Velcro on the back of the DVD player so my kids couldn't push it back. I re-enforced behind the backing with 1 x 2's.



I bought some styrene pop-outs from Lowe's and started hot gluing a structure together.



I kept gluing several pieces together to form a basic structure. If I were to ever attempt this again, I would go online and buy two of those big 4' x 5' Styrofoam blocks used in construction, would have been so much easier.



I drew in some rough branch shapes and started to carve. I wish I had one of those hot wires to cut through the styrofoam but they were expensive. The craft stores sold one for about $20, but it was too small for this project and didn't work well.



Here's the basic tree shape.



I used brown felt, drenched in Elmer's glue, to cover the body. Once that dried, I covered the entire tree with two more coats of glue. It dried very solid and should hold up well.



Started painting the walls and added some vinyl Pooh stickers.





I painted the tree using several different Acrylic colors which is hard to see in the photo.





My mom came over and helped with painting some details.



I made the top of the tree out of a large heavy duty piece of green felt. The ceilings are about 9' - 10', so this is pretty tall. The felt is stapled to the ceiling and wall. My wife went to Michael's and used a 50% off coupon for a fake tree. I took all the branches off and pushed them through the felt and secured them with hot glue.



For the most part the entire room is done, save a few details. It came out OK and the kids love it. To be honest, it was a complete pain in the rear. I just wish I had better sculpting skills, the tree didn't come out how I had envisioned and the proportions are off, but I can live with this.