The Play Surface

This step is one I had been dreading for months now. I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the fabric smooth enough, or that the insert wouldn’t fit in the vault area, or that the drawers would scrape against the underside when opening and closing…but it was finally time to just build it and see what happens.

I originally had a sheet of 1/8” hardboard for the bottom, but I found that it was so thin that it started to sag where the drawer pockets were, the drawers would drag against it. I decided to upgrade to 1/4” plywood for more stiffness. I picked up a piece from Home Depot and cut it to size. I don’t know how I went so long without a good track saw…I love this thing:

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Then into the back yard with the Super 77. The first layer would be 2mm neoprene so that surface had some give:

There were some wrinkles, but I hoped that as I glued it down and stretched it they’d come out. For the most part they did, but in retrospect I probably should have tried to steam them out first. I figured that once the suede was over top that the crazy color variations based on what direction the fabric was laying down would hide any remaining issues.

I’d spray about 12” or so, smooth down the neoprene, then roll up the remaining part to around the edge of the glue line, and repeat.

I let that sit for an hour or so, then brought out the micro suede. It had some wrinkles from shipping so I put in the dryer on the steam cycle (testing on a smaller scrap first to make sure nothing bad happened!). It came out perfectly smooth, which was a huge relief.

I laid it down over the neoprene and cut it fit, then got to gluing, using the same technique as the neoprene, but this time I sprayed both surfaces to really get a good hold:

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I left about an inch and a half around the edges, gave them a blast of glue, then rolled the fabric of the edge and gave it a good stretch as I pressed it into the glue. I was really worried about this part, making sure the fabric didn’t have any weird puckers at the very edge, but it ended up laying down super smooth!

Now came the moment of truth. I cut the board about 1/16” short on both edges, figuring that the fabric wrapped around the edge would make that up and give me a snug fit. I put the long edge down and dropped the other, and as it sloooowly fell into place I knew it was good: the air underneath was cushioning the fall because the fit was tight enough that it could just barely find its way out.

It came out so good, I just kept walking back into the room to stare at it! I’ll have more beauty shots later, but now I need to finish the leaves so that we can actually use it for Thanksgiving!

Okay, one more shot: