Remember your first apartment? You had to make do with hand-me-downs from relatives, thrift store finds or even pieces abandoned on the sidewalk. Well, that's sort of what I was going for with this scene. Improvising a bookcase with planks of wood and concrete cinder blocks (or milk crates) was a ubiquitous piece in the starter apartments I remember. Immediately, that's what came to mind when I saw these miniature cinder blocks. Each has a magnet embedded in real concrete and are intended to be used to keep notes and such on your message board. Of course, that's never stopped a miniaturist from making a thing or two work in 1:12 scale. Two folding chairs (albeit uncomfortable after a while) are easy to borrow from the family. Right? Placed facing the improvised-coffee table makes for a quick conversion to a card table. Bid Wist anyone? The guy who lives here has the basics: dice on hand for gambling, recycled cookie tins for extra storage, a place to shove books and hold up the TV and telephone. That's organization on a budget. When he's not playing cards, craps or watching the game, the dumbbells are nearby for a few reps of biceps curls and triceps extensions. Oh, yes a pair of souvenir sarapes (again, from family) warm the walls. So there you have it, a starter-apartment in 1:12---circa 1987, maybe. For me it was tiny cinder blocks, now tell me what miniature piece(s) have you designed a room around?
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| Concrete block magnet by Kalki'd fresh out of the cb2 packaging. |
Details: folding chairs and dumbbells were part of action figures purchased from the dollar store; bowl, picture frame, 'H'-block, all wood, wheels and acrylic block from Michael's; rug is a sample from The Shade Store; telephone is Rement; model motorcycle is a Hallmark Keepsake Ornament; TV by Kikkerland; wire basket is an Etsy find; sarapes, brown book and white box from Minimodernas; dice from Morgan Imports (Durham, NC); books in basket from Dolls House Emporium; blue and yellow books are Kaleidoscope House accessories; thick black book and square tins are eBay finds
9 comments:
Looks very familiar, but it needs candles in Ruffino bottles ( or maybe that was just my era). We went to cinder blocks because the generation before had made old bricks highly sought after.
Ha, that looks very much like my student flat. To decorate the walls I used to ask the local cinema for movie posters and had furniture from charity shops. Ahhh, those were the days =0)
Reminds me of our first home. Great collection of stuff.
Hugs, Drora
Hello from Spain: nice first apartment .... Keep in touch
My college bookcase, too! Take away the motorcycle and add in a radio/cassette player and some candles. And a load of textbooks! Thanks for the mini trip in the Wayback Machine!
Thanks Molly, Drora and Sandra. I'm really glad you could truly relate. Molly, I'd forgotten about those bricks but now I remember seeing them. Right Sandra, who didn't have a 'boom box'?
Pepper, old movie posters was a great idea for cheap wall coverings. I was busy buying more expensive (and out of my budget) posters from the art museum shops.
Thanks you so much Martha.
My son made these same bookshelves in his room about five years ago. The cinder blocks are still around, serving other purposes. No cinder blocks for my first apartment! I went into debt!
Nailed it. Too funny. I had that cinderblock bookcase. Along with folding plastic IKEA chairs. Also had bullet holes in the windows, but it was my first and last apartment on my own. Oh memories. :D
I just love this...so funny and spot on.
Dory
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