S-c-r-o-o-g-e!!

I thought you all might enjoy seeing a complete view of one of the roomboxes I've built. This is the Scrooge! roombox I built a number of years ago. It won a blue ribbon and best of show at the Iowa State Fair. I did my best to incorporate everything Dickens described in Ebenezer Scrooge's bedroom, including the barely burning coals in his fireplace.

I also let my imagination spin free with adding details I think would have been a part of Scrooge's room, such as cracks in the walls, a broken window with a rag stuffed in it, a broken chair leg propped up with books and a board, a hole in the ceiling and items with IOU tags attached to them throughout the room.

This project started with my building the fancy bed and wondering, "Now, what do I do with this?" The bed had a fancy coverlet on it. Once I realized it had to be Ebenezer's bed, I took the coverlet off, created a sagging mattress and stained the sheets with tea bags. I left the bed unmade. That's how I imagined Scrooge would live. He never would have taken the time to fuss with making a bed - a useless expenditure of energy!

I drew the image of Marley's ghost, then had it photographically etched into a piece of glass that now fills the doorway. The ghost "glows" because I placed a light that shines down on the edge of the glass. I also drew the fireplace tiles and stitched the fireplace screen. I carved Scrooge from a 2x4 piece of pine, and created all of the furniture in the room. (My Web browser allows me to click on the top image and view it in much greater detail. I encourage you to try that, since the quality and details are so much better when it's larger!)