Easy interiors, DPM Corner cafe

[CNR Glen]

DPM makes some great buildings, most have large windows that lend themselves to interior detailing, unless you're building a vacant building.

I have a nice corner lot that I had DPM's corner cafe on it but I found that since I had built it it looked a bit dated with some flaws in the structure as well as a lack of some detailing that I wanted to add.
I started by painting the brick in a kalki color with the windows, doors and trim painted in Colonial Blue. I used a concrete wash to bring the motar color out between the bricks.


I used Woodland Scenics dry transfers for the Cafe name (Baxters) as well as a bit of advertizing and posters on the rear wall. I also added the window glass and pull down blinds.


When adding the interior I used some card for a floor template.


The cafe interior is laid out on the floor template with the walls, lunch counter and sit-down booths marked out. There is an entrance to the stairwell for the second floor to the right. The one wall will seperate this from the cafe. Seeing as the front door is at a 45 degree angle to the walls I made the floor to aquare the footprint.

The floor is made out of styrene. I primered it in grey.

THe lino flooring is some scrapbooking paper. Other options would be hardwood with the covering cut out of magazines or catalogues.

Using the card template again I cut out the walls.

The walls were all sprayed white with the two kitchen walls painted in a sky blue to match the floor.

[ianacole]

Looking forward to the results! Great idea for the flooring ... I need to start raiding my wife's scrapbooking stash.

[montanan]

Looks great. I love adding interiors to buildings. Here are a few pictures of a little cafe I scratch built. Looks like we had the same ideas.

[CNR Glen]

Those interiors look great, Montanan. I'm not detailing to that extent, and I don't have the room in my model that you have.
Another good supply for interior detailing is a company called scalescenes. that sell card and paper models and have interior detail sets that include wall and floor coverings, furniture, TV's, washing machines, and many other articles. I have a hotel lobby that I have to detail and I'll be using some of their products to do so.

I did get the interior walls up this morning before I ran off to work. I added a food shelf to the kitchen wall. I also made and installed the lunch counter. It's a piece of basswood with a styrene contertop.


The rest of the furniture is also under constuction. For the booth seats I took a passenger car bench seat from an old Suydam kit over to my father in law's workshop. Fifteen minutes later with his tablesaw produced this:


I made 2 feet (actual, not scale) of seat stock. All I have to do it paint it and cut the benches to size.
Next is the lunch counter stools and the booth tables.

[Rico]

Great idea Glen, wish I thought of that when I did my diner.
Next time.
Hope you're doing allright with the fires!

[CNR Glen]

Hope you're doing allright with the fires!

Thanks Rico. The wildfire that happened last week was on the other side of the lake from where I live. It burned very fast but also was put out reletivly fast (unlike the 2003 fire)

[montanan]

Looking good. l used small nails for te stools at the counter. Cut them to length, ground the base flat and super glued them to the floor after painting the top to resemble padding. I did use a few castings for the phone, cash register, wood stove and radio, but everything else was built from sctatch except the tables and chairs. I do like what you are doing for the booths seating. Excellent.

[CNR Glen]

A bit more progress


I scratched my stools using styrene shapes. I uesed a leather hole punch to make the seats and tubing for the posts. I found that the counter was a bit too low so I added a couple more layers of countertop to heighten it a bit. The clock and ship picture on the walls came from a scalescenes interior accents set.
Montanan, it looks like we have the same cash register.
The figures aren't painted (obviously) but I placed them there for effect

[montanan]

Looking good. Keep the pictures coming. Sometimes I wonder if all of this detail is lost, but once you see it on a layout, it is worth it.

[skillman]

If I had the time I think I would add interiors to all buildings on a layout. However time is always limited like finances. I usually only detail what can be easily seen. I'm impressed with all the ideas that I see here. I have started building and rebuilding structures for a new layout. I believe that I'll start putting interiors in them as I build them.

Steve