A Painted Chest For Leo

For those of you just tuning in.....

I have a new great nephew, Leo!!!!

Actually, he is my only great anything.....

First child in our family's ongoing reproductive cycles!!!!

He is my niece Miriam and her husband, Ross's newly minted son.

Well.....

I'm not really that much into babies.....

this one is kinda cute.

But...

this does give me a new room to decorate!!!!!!!

Since I had redone my buddy, Kris's bedroom.....

and painted a chest for her room, replacing the one she had been using.....

this is her room....shown below.....with the new chest.....

which I want to repaint the drawers.....

I don't like so much contrast.

Kris thinks I'm crazy, as no one sees the room but her and her hubby, Keith.

DOESN'T SHE UNDERSTAND, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PICTURES?????

She had no use for her old chest, and wanted it out of her house.

 So she did what we always do when we want to get rid of something.....

We act like we are being altruistic.....

and offer it as a gift to the closet person standing near the object,

 when we realize we don't want the damn thing anymore.

As is so happened.....

this time it was little old MOI...

Kris thought it would make a nice child's chest if it was painted.

I didn't really give a rat's patoot, 

I just wanted something to paint.

It had been a while and my fingers were itchy to feel the filth and dirt below their nails.

So  I started out by painting it white, as the other furniture in the room is white, being a baby's room and all.....

I decided to paint the knobs green, to go with the chair and rug details in the room.

The walls are the light blue, and the navy is the welting on the chair.

The rug is from Pottery Barn and full of blues and greens.

Well....

I was using chalk paint, and of course, though I have most of the colors.....

there were no colors in the green or blue I needed.

Sooooooooo.......

this is where my year of visual arts came in handy.

I had to take a full year of it at Georgia State University, before I could take any Interior Design classes.

The work I did in that year has been invaluable to me over the looooooong course of my career.

When painting the knobs, I used a cardboard box, I had kicking around.

This way, I could paint them without getting the paint on the chest, or all over my fingers.

Use an awl, and poke a hole in the cardboard.

THEN PUSH THE SCREW THROUGH!!!!!

I AM A @#$ GENIUS!!!!!

I mixed together some of the paints, I think it took three to get to the right green.

But I did a right fine job, if I do say so!!!!!!!

I had been thinking of different things I could paint on the front of the drawers.

In my more delusional moments....

I had thought that it was a three drawer chest.

I mean....

you didn't expect me to walk all the way down to my basement and check, 

did you?????

Sooooooo.....

I thought it would be nice to paint Leo's first, middle and last name on the three drawers.

Well imagine my surprise when I saw there were 4!!!

I  switched my thinking in mid stream, and decided on the alphabet.

Leo's grandmother....(guffaw, guffaw, guffaw.....grandmother!!!) my sister-in-law,

suggested that I paint the letters in lots of colors.

I must admit, I was having tunnel vision, and was only thinking of the color blue.

She was brilliant, I tell ya, brilliant!!!

So, I started laying out the letters on sheets of drawing paper, so I could map out how they would be painted.

Then I had to figure out the color placement.

I didn't want any colors to be two in a row.

And I didn't want any repeats on top of each other, by the knobs.

Sooooo.

I started with a d.

Then, I worked my way out from the middle.

I wanted the letters to be tilted in all directions, as that seems to be the way it's done for little children....

I took a step back to admire my work.

Very exciting in Betsyland!!!

I was having trouble with the red, the pigment was so strong it was leaking everywhere.

It wasn't until the last two letters on the bottom drawer, that I switched to a stippling brush, and the stencil finally came out with clean letters.

Sometimes I am a big fat idiot.

No arguing about this fact, it's just what it is.

Anyway.....

I finished the paint job!!!!!

Here's a side view.

And I can't end without my amazing side by side comparisons!!!

From grown up to baby, in Betsy's basement!!!!

OK Kampers.

See you real soon!

And on that note,

Latah, Gatah