Refinishing 101

Do you have any furniture around your house that you hate? Well I did. This was Amber's hope chest. Truly a vestige of the '80s --oak veneer, floral print seat and all. GAG!!!! The beauty of it though, is that it is cedar lined and makes a great bench and a place to store blankies. (yeah, I said blankies, got a problem??) Since we are living in this rental house, space has been at a premium. We really needed to get it out of the loft where the TV and the toys reside. This project was all Amberly's idea, I am just the laborer.

Here are the supplies we used. This was all purchased at the home depot. It cost about $60, it would have been much less, but all of our painting supplies were in storage, so we had to buy a few brushes and a roller and roller pan. The biggest cost was new hardware for the front of the chest.

First, I had to carry it down the stairs to the back patio. I felt like Emmett on Breaking dawn setting up for Bellas wedding.

We removed the pad, removed the old handles and the hinges. Then sanded the bench down. I used 100 grit and a vibrating sander.

The boys LOVE power tools.

Like my socks?

The next step was to paint a primer coat. This stuff was STICKY, in retrospect we probably didnt need to sand the bench first. The primer coat did a good job of keeping the wood grained pattern covered.

We let this dry and went to pick out our fabric for the bench. Then we decided to go see "This means war" --GREAT FLICK. We had a fun date. I am glad the weather is so nice out we were just able to leave it on the back patio until the next day.

The next step was to paint. We used a color called beluga (black). It took two coats.

While the paint was drying, we recovered the old bench pad. We left the old fabric on and just covered it. We picked out a fun color and pattern. we were tired of living in taupe. I was happy to have an excuse to use my staple gun. This fabric cost about $9 at hobby lobby in the upholstery fabric rolls.

We thought the leopard print might spice up the bedroom a little bit.

After the painting came the antiquing. This basically means sanding all of the edges and corners, to make it look like its been in your family for 100 years.

This shot shows how I propped things up. I turned a laundry basket upside down, covered it with a dropcloth and then balanced the chest on top of it so we could get the edges easily.

Next we placed a poly-acrylic clear coat. It was pretty fast drying. Then reassembly of the hardware and hinges.

Here is the new handle next to the totally 80's old one.

FINISHED

Then I hauled it back upstairs twilight style---and VOILA!! A beautiful antique hope chest. Now blanket storage and place for me to put my shoes on.

Interior Shot:

Right at the foot of the bed.

Now sweetheart wont have to jump so high, and Michael wont have to lie and cry.

I am super happy with how this turned out. We had a great time together working on it. I cant wait for the next project. Maybe Amberly can help me restore the jeep.....