This Old Trunk

A few months ago, after a long search, I bought a large wooden trunk for the end of my bed.  Happy to have found the style and price range I was shooting for, I wasn’t too picky about the yellow/green paint it had on it.  However, this past weekend was my chance to channel my inner wood worker and refinish/repaint it to my liking.

It all began with a Friday evening trip to Lowe’s, and ended with primer, velvet brown paint, a paintbrush, various grades of sand paper, a sanding block, and the looming feeling that this was definitely going to take longer than anticipated.

I headed home to view my canvas one last time and take it to my makeshift workshop/garage.


Now began the long and arduous task of sanding down the old paint and any imperfections.  I opted to do it by hand, but by hour 2 I was kicking myself for not taking up Billy on his offer to use his electric sander…

 

  

Finally, whether through hard effort or by taking stock of how long I’d been sanding, it was time to apply primer.

  

 

After giving it a few hours to dry I rushed home just as the sun was dropping behind the trees in hopes of putting on a first coat and giving it the chance to dry overnight.  Painting was challenging enough, but doing so at dusk presented a rather unique hurdle…

 

 

The next morning I found that the humidity had severely hindered the drying process, and with huge storms threatening, I decided to bring the final stages into the apartment where I could do touch-ups and plug in a few fans.

 

After “drying” all day (the quotes are necessary because the humidity dragged the process out forever) I finally put it all back together to yield a finished product that I’m pretty happy with.  I probably should have done a second coat of velvet brown, but that sounds like a project for another weekend.