the time a neighbor placed an old chest on the street for garbage collection. The one drawer that still existed was retained at the bottom for storage of extra furniture. Some of the furniture in these photographs was mine (1940's). Other pieces were added in the 1970's for our daughter and some later than that. The drawer keeps the assortment available for redecorating. During its early years, Santa with his sleigh and raindeers sat near the chimney at Christmas.

PHOTOGRAPHS SHOULD EXPLAIN THE RESULTS:

The top of the chest is an attic room. The front side of the roof is built in two pieces and hinged so that the lower portion can be lifted. It is held in place with an attached wooden prop (see photo). The roof is made with latticed wood strips, the chimney is painted with a brick design and trees and flowers are painted on the outside walls. For the floors we used carpet scraps for the bedrooms and the bathroom and a Formica scrap for the kitchen. My husband cut tiny pieces of wood and created a parquet floor for the living room. There are doorway openings between the rooms and a movable staircase. We added wheels for obvious reasons.

Basically, I assembled 2 Billy Bookcases, 1 Billy Wall Shelf, 1 Smadal TV Console from IKEA and attached them to the wall up against a section of beadboard forming an inverted "U" shape. I also attached the bookshelves to the wall shelf for added stability. I left the TV stand free and just pushed it against the wall (as a bench and shoe storage) so that I could remove it to sweep under it. I did reinforce the TV stand with some metal L brackets to support the weight of my kids sitting (and standing and jumping) on it.

Where the shelves met the wall, I added quarter round trim and added corbels under the wall shelf for architectural interest. I also added crown molding along the tops of the shelves.

I had paint color matched and painted all the trim, beadboard and crown molding "Ikea White" (which is actually more of a cream color)

Lastly I added coat hooks and my mudroom built in was complete.

Total cost (shelves, hardware, paint, hooks): $309