We
came across used furniture shop stand, while changing houses, and it was
like stepping into the candy store! We were driving by, with our car bursting with
all the boxes, and suddenly we saw a pile of old, broken furniture. Some of
them were average at best, other beautifully carved, some in reasonably good
condition and the rest almost beyond repair. It was pouring, as it does in the
middle of the monsoon and most of the pile was just rotting, barely covered by
the shed’s roof. As soon as we unloaded our boxes, we returned to this magical
place and bought few things on the spot. That’s how my adventure with
renovating furniture started.
The
trunk was my first project, so most of the time I had no idea what I was doing.
With the help of Pinterest I managed to finish it (though I’m still searching
for matching handles) in surprisingly short time and had tons of fun in the
process.
The
first step was solid sanding. I got lucky, cause the trunk was almost stripped
of all the paint and polish. The bottom was nearly eaten through by termites though. I
got some extremely smelly poison and wood protector and brushed it all over the
trunk. Lucky we have quite spacious porch, because I can’t imagine using it
indoors. Of course I had to do something about all the holes. In the shop, they
recommended sth called “putty” which basically is a slow drying paste. You can apply
it on wood or wall cracks, smooth out with the “putty knife” and sand to
perfection when it is dry. Later on I found proper wood filler, which is much
thicker and stronger, but since only the bottom of the trunk was damaged it doesn’t
matter that much.
After
that came the wood primer and later the wood paint.
The most annoying part of
the renovation was waiting. Every product I used had to dry 24+ hours: the
poison, the wood filler, the primer, the paint and then the wood polish! And,
of course it took double the time, since there was always one side (on which
the trunk was lying) left to pain after the rest dried.
Nevertheless
I reach the happy moment when the whole thing was nicely painted in sort pale
sea foam color. I used oil paint with satin finish from Asian Paints, which I’m rather happy with.
I
actually hesitated quite a bit before painting the whole thing. In the
beginning, I thought of just staining the wood and applying wood polish, but in
the end I decided on more vintage look with some typography.( This
is a fantastic site with many printables, transfer methods etc.)
My
print transferred reasonably well, though I had to keep an eye for the details
of the pattern while painting it.
I used simple acrylic paint for the
typography, since I was planning to secure it with wood polish in the end.
After the print was done, I took out my sand paper again to give the trunk more
authentic vintage look. And, as I mentioned before, I gave it a good coat of
slightly tinted wood polish.
I added a very simple keyhole but I’m still on the
lookout for nice, heavy side handles. So far I’m simply in love with it, though
I may repaint it again one day. After all I’m gonna have to start planning our
future flat quite soon!
.jpg)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.JPG)
