Globe Makeover

I've been having a lot of fun lately taking inexpensive, mass-produced miniatures and remaking them into miniatures with a more unique look. Here's a globe I finished recently.
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Here's the gobe I started out with - I bought it for US$6-7 on eBay.

Now, to me, this piece looked much too modern for Myrtlewood, so I had to "antique" it a bit.

First, I carefully took everything apart and stripped the finish off the wood. Then I restained all the wood and applied a satin finish. This by itself greatly changed the look of the piece.

I replaced the gold bead feet with mini casters. I absolutely love these little casters! They made their first appearance on my cellarette, and will probably find their way onto several pieces in the future. If you want the piece to roll, be careful to apply all the casters facing the same way. While they actually roll (which I love!), mine at least do not swivel, so they must all face the same direction.

Then I got creative and decided to redo the globe itself. To maintain accuracy, I can't have a modern-day globe in an 1880s library! First I searched out antique globe gores on the internet, resized them on my computer, printed them, cut them out, and carefully glued them over the top of the globe. The result was too horrible to photograph. The paper would not lay flat against the globe, and the more I fiddled with it, the lumpier it got!

I finally chucked the whole thing and started over with a 1 1/4" wood ball, which fortuitously was just the right size. I drew on all the continents by hand and then painted them. This was a laborious process that I do not care to repeat, but I think the end result looks nice, and I'm glad I did it. To me, the globe looks a lot more Victorian, and isn't too recognizable as the modern piece I started with. What do you think?