Tuesday, August 30, 2011

"The Pink Chest"

My Mom assigned "clever" names to things in our house.

We had "The Yellow Thing" which was a rolling yellow cart where Mom placed her items related to her church calling (job). We had "The China Cabinet" (OK, maybe not so clever), where she kept her nice serving dishes and goblets for Thanksgiving dinners.

Then, there was "The Pink Chest". This was a plain nondescript cabinet, just off the kitchen, probably built by my grandfather Christensen. This cabinet was used as an office supply desk. For some reason, it was painted a cheerful light pink. I always loved "The Pink Chest". I loved that the door opened up and became a desk surface. I loved that there was always a roll of adding machine tape hung on one of the drawer knobs for notes and grocery lists. The same drawer which held the famous "Pink Scissors". (Yes, I still have "The Pink Scissors")

After Mom passed away and Dad remarried, my stepmother stripped off the pink paint, sanded it down and stained it to an ugly orangy wood color. The worst part was that she took some ugly plastic contact paper with giant orange flowers and glued that to the front of the chest. After Dad died, we were going through some of the things that were left, I took the chest home with me. I ripped off the plastic contact paper almost immediately but the chest has sat mostly unused in the guest room for the past several years.

Until two weeks ago...

I primed the chest with Zinsser by RustOleum. Then I painted the whole thing with a chalky white latex paint. After that I bought some antiquing rub from Robert's crafts and also picked up some sheets of scrap book paper, with the idea of decoupaging them to the front of the chest.

I rubbed on some of the antiquing paint and then finished off by attaching the scrap book pages with several layers ModgePodge.

I am so happy with the finished product. I will need to come up with a clever new name for it now. What do you think? Oh, and there is still a roll of adding machine tape hanging from the drawer inside.



6 comments:

gaylynn said...

It should always be "The Pink Chest" almost needs one of those little name tags on the front! It turned out beautiful.

Vicki said...

How about "chalky white chest"? Yeah.. pretty lame, eh? Anyway, loved your story about the pink chest and love how it turned out. Good on ya, Jackie! Hope all is well, Cousin!

Josh Adamson said...

It looks fantastic! Maybe it could be "The Chest Formerly Known as Pink." or the "Not-Pink Chest."

Tony said...

I like the "Not-Pink Chest"

Dawn said...

I remember that Dad would sit at the Pink Desk every payday and figure out the budget, to the penny! We have the old "closet" that was down in Jay's room. We put shelves back in it and it is a pantry thing. We call it the Grandpa Closet. Grandpa Christensen made it too, I think. Grandpa Murray used to make stuff like that too. I don't know if the Pink Chest was Grandma Lila's or if, in deed, Grandpa Christensen made it. I have the little desk that Grandma Christensen used to have that Grandpa made. It doesn't have a place to hang a roll of paper. It's a totally different style.
Blah Blah Blah...a little chatty tonight...need to get back on Facebook...

craig said...

what about "The Purple Popcorn Blanket"?? Oh how descriptive and colorful were our things!

Great job on the renaissance of the pink chest...or "not Pink Chest"