Day 8: Trunk Rehab

For many years, my extensive Beanie Baby collection lived in the teal trunk in our room devoted entirely to toys.  However, I finally figured out that they really should be in a clear tub because they could not see out...haha just kidding.  I wanted the trunk because I love trunks, and the Beanie Babies needed to be in a tub better suited for long term storage in variable conditions.  Such begins my trunk rehab experience.

Materials:
-Ugly old trunk.  Mine was teal.  Not pretty teal, pretty HIDEOUS teal.
-Paint.  I prefer Behr paint and primer, I chose a gray called "Anonymous"
-Stencils (optional) and a different color of paint (mine was white crackle paint)
-Paint brushes, drop clothes, tape, whatever you prefer to use in your painting ventures.

Here is my ex Beanie Baby Hotel.  Structurally it has a few small issues, but nothing that hinders its usage severely.  I don't mind not being able to quite latch it.

I don't use painters tape.  I can get projects done much quicker if I paint slow and careful than if I have to take the time to tape.  I may be the slowest taper EVER.

We happened to have an extra cheapo shower liner lying around, so I used that as a drop cloth. 

I would advise using an angled brush (1 inch) or using a teeny tiny brush to trim if you are like me and have no desire to paint.

I bought a larger brush but did not even bother to use it, the 1 inch did just fine for the whole thing.

I bought my stencils for about $3, and they came with two different kinds of patterns on the sheet.  I instantly loved this "border" pattern because by alternating the direction of the sheet it made a damask print.

I found this crackle paint on clearance.  Let me tell you, it made my life miserable.  Unless you just love the look of crackle (which I do) and dont have crackle spray paint (which I didn't)...PUH-LEASE use something else.  Use some neato spray or something because this is just mentally exhausting and it's really fume-y. 

Which should be a legal Words With Friends play.

As you can see I goofed up pretty bad on that last bottom one (cue the mental exhaustion), but if you have a paint can opener or something you can scrape with you can try to make something similar to the pattern and then touch up the paint.

Seriously, be prepared to touch up some paint if you deal with this crackle mumbo-jumbo. 

Anyway, here is my finished product.  I did not do the back because no one will ever see it as it is going at the end of my bed.  I think it looks alright with the small section left untouched, it might also have been cute to paint that a different color.

Something for you to think about.

I absolutely love it, and it will be joining me at college.  Unless its sister trunk that is still at home turns out better whenever I decide to rehab it. 

This one would also look great in my future craft studio, which is going to have a lot of damask in it as well.  But for now, college it is.

The paint cost about $35 bucks, but I have a lot left and will be able to use it on other projects. Counting the stencils and the brushes I really spent about $58 bucks at the home improvement store.  So that is the only thing that really stinks about a project like this.  Paint is never cheap.  But you really could get by on a quart instead of a gallon on something like this, it only took me one coat.  But like I said we have a few other things that need this paint as well (our living room is this color and there are some touch-ups on the horizon). 

So nothing will go to waste!

Day 8 goes down as a success!

And Walsh-Jennings/May-Treanor got gold! WOOHOO!