I dryfit the panels, dryfit trim pieces, put the staircase in and took it back out many times for dryfitting this piece or that-- I tried to do everything that I could think of before I glued in the staircase for good, including the wiring. I decided to go with the Tiffany lamp in the understair, even though it does take away from the Christmas lights a bit, because I wanted to accentuate the understair and I think it adds more realism...

I made a little electrical plug cover out of a scrap of basswood, and found two nails to "attach" it...

I had gotten some lace some time ago, with the thought that it would make a good stair runner-- hadn't been a good match 'til now... I made some stair rods out of wood beads and craft wire-- had just enough wire for all the steps, only about half an inch left over!

Right before I thought I was ready to put the staircase in, I thought of a reason not to just yet-- I found some "fuzzy" Christmas wire that I had gotten on sale and forgotten about-- I trimmed it down and took a few pics to study it-- it seems to do pretty well. I then went on a hunt for five bells to put between the spindles going up the staircase-- between stealing from other projects and organizing a few stashes, I finally made my quota!

I needed a little table with a low footprint for the understair, so I put one together with spindles and basswood-- I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.

And finally, all the trim is in, with a coat of sealer; I need to do something about the end of that stair runner though... I think I will put another coat of sealer on the basswood to even it out (also the wood seems to get a bit "fuzzy" and I want to minimize dustcatching potential)...

I wanted an upholstered chair in the understair, so I spent a bit of time fiddling around with paper patterns and bits of balsa and cardboard, using some of the catalogue pictures from Ernie's latest mailing as a rough guide! After some trial and alot of error, I put this one together pretty quickly, not even bothering to iron the cloth, just to see how it looks and figure out ways to improve:

Neatness will obviously be a main area to improve. As far as general build: Well it crowds out the table in the corner, so I think that I will taper the seat footprint a bit so that it narrows up at the back. Also I think that I will shave 1/8" from the width as well as the depth. The green is just wrong for the wallpaper, and the gold cord is too much-- I will need to look over my fabrics and see what works best... Otherwise I like the general shape of it...