Project: Cedar Trunk from Goodwill

First, I finally finished our night stands! They also have the matching damask print wrapping paper liner and are painter a Martha Stewart Grey. I think they turned out amazing, I'm pretty proud of myself! Between the three layers of paint I (well we, my mom helped of course!) had to scrap off and the fact that it takes two people to lift the solid wood nightstands from a Tennessee company- they took forever, but are finally completed!!!!

Then I started on my next project: the cedar chest I found at the goodwill, it was originally marked at over two hundred, but was on sale and half off so I took it home for around $99 (honey don't freak out, you will love it and it's functional- it has lots of storage, you know for the stuff of yours I want to hide ;) I probably spent around $20 on supplies, paint, primer, rollers, drop cloth etc.- but I had enough left over to almost finish the other set of night stands I purchased for only $20! More on those later, they should be done by next week. Here is the color it started, not awful, but not my taste.

The inside of my beautiful chest, also from Tennessee, as our my dressers and nightstands- they are all beautiful older quality solid wood pieces. I know lots of descriptive words there! Anyways it has an engraved name plaque and all of the paper info still in the chest and the inside is immaculate (that goodness for spellcheck and google or I'd spell everything incorectly- yes mom I spelled that incorrectly on purpose!)

Here is the chest after two coats of primer and two coats of paint, that is pretty standard for my furniture painting.

I love the detail on the front of the chest, it immediately caught my eye.

Then of course it was time to scuff up my freshly painted chest. It is hard to do at first, but since the chest had a few dings it had to be done!

I then used three coats of Varathane brand polyurethane. I usually use a wipe on poly if I use a darker cooler, it yellows a little which can add to the antique or shabby chic look, but since it was a bright white I needed something that would not yellow. Last month my friend Amy from Design-aholic told me about a great blog that she thought I would love, a few days later my other friend Amber over at Amber's Notebook recommended her friend's blog, and oddly enough it was the same blog so I had to check it out! I highly recommed giving it a view, Holly at Life in the Fun Lane is amazing! She recommended Verathane brand because it was the only poly that she had found that didn't yellow. I love it, it didn't yellow except in one of the cracks where I obviously had globed it on way too think, but that little blob peeled off (I saw it before it was fully dry.) Thanks Holly, my cedar chest looks amazing and I hope to borrow (OK steal) many more ideas from you!!