Home Gym

My dear friend Cheryl always teases me about doing 'instant' roomboxes and I always reply that I collect and plan in my head for about two years usually before actually starting work so they just seem to come together quickly.

That said, this one really is an 'instant' roombox in that I made it before breakfast this morning.

In the collection of miniatures that Danielle Perry donated to MEE for the children's grab bags at the September Show and Sale, there were two sets of 1:24 kitchen  magnet exercise equipment.

A few shows ago, Joanne R. had displayed a little vignette using some of these pieces so I popped a couple dollars in the box and took out one set.

Over the past couple weeks I've wavered about doing something with them until yesterday when Lorry S. brought two of these wonderful little boxes to the workshop yesterday as a giveaway. One look and I knew that the exercise equipment had found a home!

So this morning I cut a piece of matboard for the floor and covered it with a piece of fabric I got four or five shows ago.

For some unknown reason I chose to glue this down rather than use carpet tape so needed to weigh it down while the glue dried.

This is my copy of The People's Almanac 2. Aside from being an interesting, fun read (especially if you're a trivia buff as I am), it weighs almost two pounds so it's great for weighing items down.

Then I cut another piece of matboard for the back wall. Because the box has clear openings both front and back, on the back of this piece of matboard, I named and signed the roombox.

On the front I carpet-taped a mirror to the middle with strips of thin cork from Lee Valley on either side. (Now what are the chances that I would have in my stash a mirror that was the exact height I needed!)  I glued four exercise charts on the cork with little dots of silver ink at the corners to denote thumb tacks. LOL Had to print the charts twice as the first time I automatically sized them for 1:12 - very much a creature of habit.

Made an exercise mat from a piece of fun foam and placed it on the floor. Also made an exercise ball from a ping pong ball painted with yellow glass stain. While this was technically in scale, it didn't look right. The ball from a roll-on deodorant would be the right size but I can't find the one I know is somewhere. LOL

Using my trusty hair dryer, I removed the magnets from the pieces of equipment and placed the equipment in the room. Placement can be tricky because of the original placement of the magnets. For example, the magnet was on one side of the exercise bike so there is no pedal on that side. And the mirror compounds the problem as you want to keep those anomalies out of the reflection. You can still see where the magnet was on the treadmill but it was the least intrusive placement.

Here I've covered the mirror with paper so the reflection doesn't interfere with the picture.

And with the box closed:

That was before breakfast. LOL After breakfast I decided to add a TV up on the wall. Heaven knows exercising is boring enough - a little TV helps it go a bit faster.

 NOW it's finished (at least until I find the deodorant ball VBG).