I dragged the finished teak campaign chest out of the shop this afternoon to get it out of harm’s way down there. Some heavy stuff is about to go down.
I am fairly pleased with the color of the finish and the surface quality of the chest. I went for an old-school texture. You can feel the scallops left by the smoothing plane on the exterior.
But aside from my mild non-displeasure with the piece, the most important comment about the piece was uttered today by my wife.
Lucy looked it over and said: “We get keep this one?”
“Yes.”
“For real this time?”
“Yes.”
That’s the highest compliment from a woman who has seen a lot of furniture go out the door this year.
The only disappointment? My photography. I snapped the quick photo above, which is plagued by parallax and a thousand other words. Perhaps I’ll find the right angle when I shoot some photos of it for my upcoming book on campaign furniture.
On that matter, I finished writing the two chapters on these chests. But I have to set the manuscript aside (briefly) to build another workbench. No, not the massive one from the Barnesville, Ga., French oak project. A different one.
More details tomorrow.
— Christopher Schwarz