Furniture Friday: Old Steamer Trunk turned Cedar Chest

When in high school, I had the opportunity to help out on an Eagle project where we all got together to re-model a house for Habitat for Humanity. (Well, remodel is used loosely because we really brought the house down to it's studs and built it back up from scratch, but that's beside the point.)  Up in the attic of this house, there were a few items that they offered to any of the helpers.  So, I picked up an old beat up steamer trunk.  This is probably the beginning of my love for finding "junk and turning it into useful household items".

Since this was years ago I don't have a before picture, but it was heavy, black, and without handles or lock.  But I loved it!  My parents were big on Hope Chests for my sister and I, and after talking it over with my dad, we came up with the idea to turn this old steamer into my Hope Chest.

You may remember that I love cedar chests.  So, my dad headed to the lumber yard for some cedar panels of 1/4" thickness to place in the trunk.

The cedar panels were just placed on the floor of the trunk. Then the sides were glued into place with an occasional nail to hold them more tightly.  He even made a tray with the leftover cedar so that I could utilize all the storage!

 He even made a tray with the leftover cedar so that I could utilize all the storage!
 It has been working wonderfully for almost 20 years to hold extra blankets and sheets for us. As with all cedar, when it starts to lose it's smell, we give it a light sanding and it's back to keeping our sheets smelling great and keeping bugs away.  

For the top, we used Mod Podge to place the wall paper which had been on my bedroom wall when I was a very little girl.  I LOVED that wall paper! And we added the Victorian picture as well.   

This would look great painted it's original black with some oil-rubbed bronze decals don't ya think?