chest of drawers / changing table

[BKHam]

my last major build before my wife had a baby. the dresser is made from maple. case sides are dovetailed into the top and drawer dividers a dadoed into sides. then i did the unthinkable, painted over the dovetails with salmon milk paint. drawers are handcut dovetails. cast iron knobs. the dresser will be used as a changing table for the diaper years so i added a plywood changing table top. then to dress it up, i added a small molding to the underside of the table top and painted it salmon as well.

​

 

[Raymond]

Looks good, Bradley, too bad you had to point the Maple. But as the old saw goes "Happy Wife, Happy Life!" And if she wanted to paint the Maple then the Maple gets painted!

 

[nn4jw]

Looks great and your baby's baby will use it one day.

 

[llucas]

Bradley
That is first class all the way! And I really like the paint job, as I agree it will likely be in the kids room eventually. I just did the same thing for my first grandbaby last year (painted that one too). dont forget to sign your work with the date, as this will surely get passed down eventually. AND, remember to attach it to the wall with a safety strap before the child tries to climb the drawers and pulls it over...my daughter wouldn't let me leave 'til I had done that.
Again, great job! and thanks for sharing

 

[BKHam]

thanks gents. i will have to sign it and the attaching to wall prob needs to happen soon as well.

i'll admit there is some ego involved in doing a dovetailed case and then painting it. hopefully someone 50 years from now will strip the paint and say 'hot #### this thing is a tank!'

 

[jlwest]

Very nice..

 

[TENdriver]

Bradley, the painting of nice wood confounds me. Built a curly maple tea table and the wife says "lets paint the legs black". I dug through a ton of wood to cut rift sawn leg stock with the best figure I could find. Sorry, not painting that.

So, this year I've been building stuff out of Eastern White Pine and Hard Pine. Same amount of work to do dovetails, mortise and tenon construction, but okay to paint. It's actually been fun.

BTW, needed something in the guest bedroom for folks to put their luggage on. Made a paint ready copy of a Pennsylvania German bench (in the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY) and I really liked the salmon milk paint just like yours is. As soon as I finish with the beading plane, it's getting a coat of soft yellow...and then I'll repaint it with three different colors before we're done. Not because we're doing an antique finish, but because soft yellow wasn't right.

I've milled up some SYP to build another copy of that bench that's already yellow from the tree! Of course, it won't work and I'll have to paint the Yellow Pine salmon.

 

[Jeff]

Why would you paint beautiful good wood or why would you paint ugly bad wood?

You and the family like the appearance of either one so paint it!

 

[JohnW]

Wow Bradley. You have 3 aspects in this project that I typically avoid, but I'm loving your chest.

Personally don't like the look of milk paint but like how yours looks. ALOT.
Not crazy about maple as the major wood, but like it on this project.
And painting ovah dovetails???
I checked the official rule book and found an exception. When a baby is part of the equation, you have special dispensation, and its allowed.

Very nice work.

 

[BKHam]

it was B grade maple. hardwood but not pretty. so i picked an economical wood to be painted. i'm more disappointed by covering up the dovetails than the wood. no curl was covered by the paint i assure you guys. on the pic showing the drawers, the bottom two show the color of the wood, not a bright maple.