
Here's how it looked before, when Stuart helped me sand it down:

There were a lot of drawers to paint! The red paint (Dulux easycare Red Pepper) went on the best, in one coat:

The knobs took as long as everything else put together; they were annoying to sand because I kept sanding my knuckles by accident, and the paint didn't stick to them very easily, and the varnish dripped. But we got there in the end.

And I had lots of blue paint left over from that, and some 'Nutmeg white' from the bathroom, so I used it on this little pine utility table, with a Pentel brush pen for the black lines.

I forgot to take a photo of the table before I painted it, but it really wasn't anything special. Here I'm brushing on Wickes 'Ultra durable indoor clear matt' varnish, which I used on both pieces. It'll need two or three coats and they take a lot longer to dry than the paint. It's not dead matte, it has a slight sheen when it dries, but I think that will make the surfaces easier to wipe.

It's very therapeutic doing these pieces; they're not like sitting at a desk, working on a fiddly little illustration. It's fun slapping on the paint, it makes me move around a lot more, and I don't have to scan anything, or look at a computer screen at all. Next project is adding some colour to our table by stripping and repainting these old wooden cork-back placemats... not sure if it will work, but I'll show you if it does. Fingers crossed!
