Roombox 1

This is so lovely! So realistic.

Would you mind sharing how you did the ceiling lights? I've been trying to figure a way to do those.

Thank you.

I'll be glad to. I had seen miniature can lights in roomboxes in some old miniature magazines, but when I tried to find some to purchase when I was doing this box I could not find any and someone, somewhere told me they weren't made anymore. They may be available now - I don't know. Even if I had found some they my have been out of my budget. i made as many things as I could to be as economical as I could. Since I couldn't find them, I had to figure out how to make them.

Above the ceiling there is an open compartment that house most of the wiring. I think the open compartment is about 3" high, but I'm not positive - it could be a little shorter than this. This area has a hinged lid which is the actual top of the box. For the can lights, I drilled holes in the room's ceiling and put in small lengths of brass tubing that was large enough in diameter to hold a dollhouse screw-in round light bulb with socket (the sockets that are used to make dollhouse lamps). These are the round bulbs, not candleflame bulbs. I don't remember the diameter of the brass tubing, but Hobby Lobby and home centers, etc. sell several sizes.

I cut a piece of the tubing for each can light a length that would fit flush with the inside ceiling and extend up into the opening above the ceiling a small amount. (The length of each tubing piece was about 1" long to fit in the ceiling which was made of 3/8" birch plywood and extend up into the open hidden area above the ceiling and be long enough to hold the bulb and socket.) Then I just dropped the bulb socket into the tubing and the cord and plug remained in the hidden area above the ceiling.

To finish off the holes on the inside of the ceiling and to keep the bulbs from dropping into the room, I used eyelets from the sewing notions department. The eyelets can be bought in packages that have several eyelets or can be bought in a belt-making kit. The eyelets fit the brass tubing perfectly. I painted the eyelets the color of the ceiling and they finish off the lights perfectly. You would never know they were belt eyelets. They look exactly like real life can lights.

I also made a 4" x 4" florescent fixture to duplicate the 4' x 4' light above my boss' desk. I cut a hole in the ceiling and I used a piece of opaque plastic. I don't remember for sure, but I think it was a piece of a quilting template. I trimmed the hole with miniature wood trim. In the area above the ceiling, I used a real-life size candelabra socket and a 7 watt night light bulb for the light. You can buy the candelabra socket at Lowes in the electrical department. I connected real-life lamp cord (also from Lowes) to the socket, put a plug on the lamp cord and it plugged into a real-life power strip along with the two real-life sockets/bulbs that are attached to the ceiling at the front of the dollhouse. These two bulbs/sockets are hidden by the mat board in the outside picture frame. In these two sockets, I used real-life 15 watt exit sign door bulbs. I did not want a lot of heat building up inside the box and 40 watt real-ife candelabra bulbs would have been too hot. The 15 watt bulbs work well.

I also drilled several holes in the top lid of the box (the lid that covers the open area above the ceiling which contains the wiring). This is to provide ventilation for the heat of the bulbs.

The roombox is basically a box-in-a-box. The walls you see in the roombox are not the outside walls of the box. They are made with matboard which is braced on the back with pieces of 3/4" x 3/4" square dowels to prevent warping. There is a space behind the back inside wall where the two pieces of artwork are hanging. That space as you look through the open door on the back wall is to simulate the hallway and you can see the door of the office across the hallway. Behind the wall where the artwork is hanging is my power strip in the "hallway". On the outside wall of the main box is a hinged door that opens so you can access the power strip.

If this is not clear, let me know and I'll try to explain more clearly. This makes me realize that I need to go make some photos of the hidden workings of the box. I should have made photos, but I did not.