Dad's Cabinet - 1966
This picture pretty much sums up Dad's do-it-yourself esthetic. This piece of furniture started off life as a common, cheap, sort-of-Mediterranean cabinet. With an antique avocado staining kit, some gold and mandarin red paint and some veneer room divider material, it turned into Clark's Box of Mystic Secrets from the Hidden Orient. I don't ever remember keeping anything inside it, which leads me to believe it didn't last long in the house. I know for a fact that eventually I used the thing in the back yard as part of my mad scientist's lab. I think it only graced our living room for a year or so before Mom got rid of it.
As angry as Mom got about the cabinet and the painted tiki god, however, what really sent her over the edge was when Dad traded in her antique spinning wheel for a camel saddle. He painted the leather cushion with the same red enamel he used on this cabinet, and painted the lower wooden portion - the part that sat on the camel, I guess - with gold paint. He then glued colored glass pebbles on it to simulate jewels. I used to vault over it when it was left in front of the TV in the den.