Hola Cottage Fix friends! I hope your summer is truck, truckin’ along good. We’re quite busy here with just the regular day-to-day kind of stuff. I always try to wrangle together a beach day when we can fit one in, usually on the weekend.
Along with much of the East Coast, we’re in the midst of a nightmare heatwave and I’m about done with it. The afternoons are almost unbearable as the temperatures soar and the air gets thick and soupy with the high humidity. Our house is completely closed up with the AC cranking. The shutters are closed and the curtains are drawn. So while I’m hunkered down in the cool AC, I decided to work on a couple of painting projects starting with this heirloom trunk. I love a good trunk, it’s the kind of thing you can just chuck just about anywhere for a bit of extra storage. This one is filled with my children’s drawings from when they were little goobers, some of their baby trinkets, and old family photos. If we ever need to split in a hurry… oh dear, grab the trunk!
It’s an heirloom piece from my Aunt Rose that was given to me with a coat of dark stain from head to toe.
When I first acquired it, I painted the bottom white and left the top the dark wood tone. And it stayed like that for the last couple of years or so.
I’m so drawn to color at the moment and I wanted to add something leaning towards the moodier side with some serious distressing on the sun porch. I was going for the chippy paint look like something I might find buried in the back garage of an estate sale, but still keeping with a shabby cottage style.
I added two coats of Annie Sloan Old Violet (I had about half a can left over from another project) and left it alone to dry for 24 hours.
The next day Mr. Manly hauled it out to the garage for me, and I sanded it like crazy. I sanded over the entire piece and just let the paint come off where it wanted to. Mostly because it’s hard to think in the sweltering 100 degree temperatures we’re enduring so the trunk was the boss. Then I brought it back indoors and topped it off with a coat of clear wax. The wax seems to bring out the colors and makes the surface nicer to the touch.
And below is a look at the Old Violet trunk and Robin’s Egg dining table color combination. More white came through on the trunk than I anticipated, but I just rolled with it.
Happy Hump Day! It’s pizza night here.
xoxo Sally
You gave your precious trunk more personality, and I’m loving it! It contrasts beautifully with all of your lovely whites.
Mary Alice
I think you accomplished exactly what you set out to with this project, Sally! And, oh that floor of yours…how envious I am!!
We have had some pretty miserable weather here in the Midwest as well. Fall will be a welcome change in a couple of months.
I love how you transformed that trunk! I love painted and distressed furniture. It’s great that you had the white paint underneath. Now it has that old layered look! It’s nice that you use it for your family’s keepsakes too. Mine are in our attic. I doubt that I would be able to save them in an emergency!
I love the way your trunk turned out, it’s perfect with the chippy white showing through too. It goes perfectly in your sunroom:) I hear you on the heat thing, it’s been disgustingly hot here too! Our last electricity bill was huge but my husband and I both agree, totally worth it. I sweat just bringing the groceries up the apartment stairs.
What a great idea to keep all your mementos in there, I have a wicker trunk with Christmas stuff in it but maybe I’ll do the same as you and, like you said, we can just grab it if we ever need to flee.
Ahhh, pizza night! We had chicken pot pie on Friday night and we’re supposed to have the leftovers on Saturday night. Kyran was watching baseball and I was scrolling through IG, I kept showing him pics of pizza and after about the 10th picture he said “That’s it, I’m ordering pizza” LOL. It hit the spot!