Wow, is this thing ever cute.  The inspiration for this little chest came from the fabric with which it is lined.  We found this cool modern print in a remnant bin and loved the design so much that we didn’t want to cut it up.  So we designed a chest to fit the dimensions of the remnant!  But that wasn’t enough.  We liked the fabric so much that we decided to echo it in the design of the exterior of the chest, too, carving and hand painting various elements from the print on the tulip poplar panels that make up the front, back and lid of the chest.  In a classic slab-style construction, we combined walnut with poplar in order to capture in wood the two primary colors in the fabric—cream and chocolate brown.  The cream color of the poplar panels was enhanced with an acrylic ‘white wash’ to visually smooth out the grains and shading variations so that the carved and painted design would stand out better.  

 

The body of the chest, in classic slab style, consists of 3 solid panels of poplar (front, bottom and back) and 2 solid panels of walnut (ends/legs) held together with blind tenons and wood screws hidden behind matching decorative poplar wood plugs.  The lid is also solid poplar with a frame of solid walnut, and lap jointed corners again held together with screws hidden behind matching poplar wood plugs.  The hand carved design was hand painted with mixed acrylics watered down for a more delicate, water-color wash look.  The interior is quilted with a double layer of batting all around under the fabric, held in place with upholstery tacks.  

 

This chest is small but hefty.  On the inside, it measures 20” long x 10” deep x 9 1/2” tall.  On the outside, it measures 22” long x 12” deep x 15” tall (including the feet), but because of the thickness of the panels (1” thick all around with an even thicker lid) and the fact that it is solid wood, it is heavy for its size.  Thus, it is only available via local pick up in the Washington D.C. Metro Region.