Can’t stop the classics!

I very much enjoy playing with fun colors, typography, stencils, and all the rest. But there is a look I keep coming back to—that of a warm wood top paired with a creamy glazed base. I love it for dining tables (like this and this), end tables, and I love it for cedar chests!

My sweet sister wanted a piece of furniture for the end of her bed. We discussed a bench, but finally settled on a cedar chest so she would have someplace to store her stacks of fabric (she’s an amazing seamstress). She found this chest through the on-line classified ads for only $30, and I picked it up for her:

It’s a good Lane-brand chest, and it even still has the key! The top is all cedar-lined, and the bottom has a drawer. She pretty much gave me carte-blanche to fix it as I liked, but I knew she liked the wood top/painted base combination.

So here’s what she got to take home!

The top is stained with Minwax Antique Walnut stain. I was at the very end of the can—and I found that it gets very thick at the bottom if you aren’t good about stirring it before each use (obviously I didn’t!). It actually gave a new and different effect to the top of the chest. In some places, the stain went on almost like paint, and could be sanded off to leave interesting lighter streaks. I kind of liked it!

I chose to change the hardware on this piece (I found the new pulls at Hobby Lobby), which involved filling all the old holes and drilling new ones. (I swear, sometimes that process takes as much time as the painting does!)

I like how the fluted shape of the knobs echoes the shape of the fan.

The base, by the way, is painted in Behr Ultra paint. I had them color-match Sherwin Williams “Creamy” paint.

I don’t have any “before” pictures of this next chest, but I thought I’d toss the “afters” in here for comparison’s sake!

As you can see, this chest is very similar (it also has a bottom drawer), and it received almost the identical treatment.

The knobs and pulls were interesting on this piece. They were a Southwestern style, had a very brassy finish, down to a faux green tarnish in the details. What is a Southwestern style knob, you ask?

Well, imagine a knob that has a stylized fish carved into it! It was not my favorite look, even after painting it all with Krylon’s oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. I replaced all the knobs with plain round knob from my stash. (I kept the pulls. They have some angular carvings on the ends, but I could live with them.)

I adore cedar chests!

Here are the two side by side:

Which one do you like better? Why?

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This project has been featured at West Furniture Revival.

Linking up here!