Building a book nook
Saturday, 29 March 2025
I mentioned in this post that my mum had bought me the Rolife Sakura Densya book nook for Christmas and that I was planning on posting about it in the future. Well, five months later here we are. I built this book nook in January and overall it was really enjoyable, even though at times it was quite taxing.
Some of the pieces were so tiny that they were nearly impossible to work with, and other pieces were so long and thin that they were on the verge of snapping in half. It required a lot of patience and fortunately there were no serious catastrophes (unlike last time). However, these kits do come with spare pieces for all the small, easily-mislaid bits, so no worries if you drop a piece and it gets sucked up by the hoover or vanishes into a black hole.
I love a good challenge and I'm feeling inspired to do another. I like the Shakespeare bookstore, the Sakura Wine Alley and the Miniature Dollhouse Study.
You can buy the Sakura Densya kit from Amazon or the Rolife website. If you're in the UK, you can find these kits in most garden centres.
If I remember, it took me about 3 days to finish. I took it slow and completely immersed myself in the process. I loved seeing it come together piece by piece. I also got to do some electronics which was fun. It's so nice to see it lit up on my bookshelf knowing that I assembled the whole thing from scratch including setting up actual working LED lights!
The first thing you assemble is this tiny wall-mounted air conditioning unit. One of my favourite little pieces.
The sweet little train carriage - with passengers! This was a finicky piece to put together because of all the small and delicate parts. So satisfying once it was finished, though.
The bridge and river covered in blossom. You can see the wiring in these photos - it runs along the bottom of the model and the switch for the LED lights sits at the front with the battery pack at the back.
You can see it all taking shape here.
The steps down to the water, the cat in the windowsill, the posters... so scenic! You can see the little porch light here too. I had to trim the shade with a craft knife because it wouldn't fit properly, so mine may look a little ragged. It doesn't look like that fresh out of the box.
One of my other favourite pieces is the railway signal and barrier. I love the contrast of the yellow and black amid the traditional buildings and floating sakura. I especially love the piece of blossom on the train roof.
And here's the finished result in the day and at night (among very good company).
I think I prefer the way it looks at night. The lights (although completely blown out because of my phone camera - they look better in real life) make the scene look a lot more atmospheric and realistic. At the back there is a mirror so when you peer into the scene it looks endless. The mirror was the icing on the cake for me. I could stare into this little scene for ages.
I hope you enjoyed going on this crafty journey with me.
