Guess what I got for you? Another trunk. I know what you’re thinking, but I just can’t help it. I see old trunks laying around and I just can’t resist the urge to take them home. I feel the same way about puppies, but have yet to successfully sneak one into the house. So until I do, I’ll stick with the trunks.

This one came from good ol’ Uncle Chuck – our go-to person when we’re on the hunt for another project (and even when we’re not). I’m surprised that I didn’t run away from this one as soon as I saw it, given the amount of wallpaper that this thing was wrapped in, and my absolute hatred for scraping. But I liked the shape of it, and easily saw it being used as a rustic coffee table once refinished.

As expected, it took quite a bit of time, energy, and effort to scrape off all the wallpaper. I even had the pleasure of having to tear out some leftover canvas that was nailed down too. And while these few little sentences completely oversimplify this part of the project, I won’t bore you with any more of the dirty details. Just know that I go through quite a few mood swings when I’m cleaning something like this up.

After scraping:

After sanding:

Unfortunately, as you can see, we did find that this trunk had quite a bit of water damage/stains to it. However, we figured that by using a darker stain, the discoloration would likely blend in anyway. We went with Minwax Dark Walnut, which is common for us to use on other projects, but not typically on trunks. Our past two trunks were both finished in Minwax Honey – more of a medium toned color that admittedly is my favorite. But because of the water damage, the darker stain was the way to go.

This trunk was much more simplistic than the others – not much hardware or metal to work with. The little metal that we did have (rounding out each of the corners) was painted in black. Once dried, we added a few coats of semi-gloss poly to help her shine.

Admittedly, I wasn’t really sure what we were going to do with this trunk once it was refinished, but of course, Dan has the perfect place in mind. He’s in the midst of a “new vision” for the garage (yes, already) and thought that this trunk would be a perfect fit for an outdoor coffee table (I knew it!). And so, this old trunk has a new home out in our garage.