While shopping with my mom last week at some antique and thrift stores on Hildebrand, we came across some old trunks. We were looking for something to hide all of the cords next to the desk in her house and thought that a couple of these would be just perfect and create more storage for her since the desk is very open and only has one drawer. Of course, I say "OLD" trunks here and not "VINTAGE" because they didn't exactly look like this when we bought them. We had to have a little vision here as you will see in one of the photos below. In my excitement to get them painted, I forgot to take a before picture of the upper trunk which was a strange brownish color that looked almost like laminate. The brown one was $18 and I believe the blue one was $35. We needed 2 of them to stack to hide some electrical boxes there so we bought both.
After washing off all of the filth, eewww, I spent about an hour taping off all of the beautifully rusted hardware and old leather handles which was well worth the time. The stamps weren't nearly as cool as they look in the picture so I had to paint over them.
I painted the rest of the trunk with some leftover primer that I had in the garage. (Sherwin Williams P-5 tinted primer) It is a great soft blue grey color.
When painting this one, I painted it so that some of the brown would show through giving it an aged look. With all of the nooks and crannies in the chest, it's easy to just lightly brush over those areas to let the brown show through. The metal on this was not that great so I just painted over it and I removed the ugly black vinyl strap on the front of the case.
Here is the finished product. I love trunks but if they are in good condition, they are usually priced to reflect that. So, if you're on a budget don't be afraid to use a little elbow grease and bring one (or two) back to life.
Here's a sneak peak into my post for tomorrow which will be some of my favorite moments in the room we have been working on at my mom and Stanley's Monte Vista Bungalow.
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