Tropical room update

Just a couple of things.

1. Over the weekend I went to the "bamboo lot" and harvested some huge pieces for making the bed. When I got home I cut these to "rough lengths" which are probably about a foot longer than they will be when I actually start making the bed. I put these in a room in my basement to dry, then took cloths and 409 and cleaned all the grime off of them. The material I collected is enough to make the headboard and footboard. Still need to get more to make the side "rails" and mattress support.

2. I have a small chest of drawers for the room that currently "doesn't go" with the new look of the room. It is painted dark green, over 1 or two other coats of paint. In the past I have used a heat gun, which would cause paint to bubble so it could be scraped off, but for some reason this paint didn't bubble. So I started the tedious and nasty task of using chemical stripper. I started with 3 of the 5 drawers. The work requires ventilation so much of it will be done an hour here and there on the driveway when the weather is good. So far 1 drawer is almost done. The other 2 are about 50% done. I want to have all the drawers done by Sunday evening.

The chest of drawers is inexpensive, but solidly built out of "manufactured pine planks". These are small pieces of pine glued up together to make boards, then cut to length and width. Because of this, the chest is intended to be painted, not stained. However, I am going to leave it unpainted. I intend to add on some pieces across the grain to make it look like it was built out of a crate. This should give one the feeling that he is on an island and things were made out of available resources...in this case, a crate that "washed up" on shore. Should be cool. Perhaps I will use some gray deck stain to give it a more weathered look too. Maybe even stencil on words like "THIS END UP" and "FRAGILE" (Fra-gee-lay...it must be Italian!)