An Old Worn Out Trunk Finds It's Feminine Side; Trunk Makeover

I love trunks, don't you?  Trunks and dressers seem to find their way to me, and I guess chairs too.  Well maybe tables, and bed frames too, OK, OK, a lot of old furniture finds it's way to me.  Wow, I need to find a way to attract buffets/sideboards, because those are my favourite.  Notice I clarified that by adding sideboards?  Food buffets don't find their way to me, but I possibly may find my way to them a little too often, you know what I mean?

I digress, back on topic, I do love trunks, this one was given to me by a friend, it came out of an old cabin that he was renovating.  You just never know if someone is going to throw everything to the dump, so just in case, I told him if any of the furniture was going to the dump, please give me first crack at it.  I hate it when furniture goes to the dump.  He gave me two end tables, a dresser and this trunk, wow, great haul.

Speaking of haul, here is my husband hauling it all home for me, even though he threatens to burn all my "junk" on a daily basis.  Did I mention the cabin was on an island, ha ha, we had to get it before the ice broke up, yes that is ice, not a farmer's field.

I'm not sure why pictures never show how bad something really looks, and then later pictures never seem to do a piece justice, how can that be?  Maybe I'll ask Siri, she always bugging me for questions ;)

Anyway, some of the fabric had been torn off this trunk, which saved me from having to do it, because it had to go!

The inside didn't look any better.

I gave the whole thing a good sanding, inside and out.

It looked pretty good, those brown spots are just where snow was melting off the roof.

I had some gel stain handy, so I put that on it.  It looked great, but didn't have any pizzaz.

I added turqoise and thought I ruined the whole thing!  It doesn't look so bad in the picture, but in person it looked gaudy.

I sanded most of it away, and suddenly I loved it.  I varnished the whole thing, metal and all and it really added life to it, especially the hardware.

I still needed something to put it over the top.  I painted a flourish on the front to add just that little bit extra. 

and another on the top, ahhh, perfection. I added just a little stain on the flourishes just to tone them down a bit.

Ok, I will confess, this is not quite finished, I need to replace the handles on the sides which I will do with pieces of an old belt.  Ha, you didn't even notice did you?