Step Two of the Strippin' Saga: The Chest

Yes, I missed a day of blogging. Sickness will do that to you. But now, I'm back and strippin' away for your pleasure. Today I'll show you how to strip your, um, Chest.

As I said before, this cedar chest was an old find of my Mom's. Turns out, it's older than we thought. The original tag is still stapled inside it. It's a Caswell-Runyan Treasure Chest originally purchased for $24.95. The chest was produced in a factory that was open from 1907 to 1956ish. It looks to have been made sometime in the 3os or 40s. I've compared it to all the old ads that I can find and those two decades come closest to the look of this chest.

Here it is just after I began applying the gel stripper that I used. You'd think that after several years of blogging that I would learn to take a good before picture prior to beginning a project, wouldn't you?

Before

After

See that little piece of painter's tape? Yeah, bad idea. Part of the front was splitting and coming up. I put glue behind it and then made the mistake of listening to my Father in law who said put tape over it to hold it down. Um, no. Instead of holding it down, it pulled it up further. So. We put it on it's back and put this God awfully heavy vise thingy of the hubby's onto the top of it. That worked. It doesn't look like there was ever anything wrong with it.

I've filled in a few tiny spots with stainable wood filler and will be sanding that and then I'll be able to start the staining. It already looks way different, no?

Wait until you here what the Eldest and I did on Saturday. More on that tomorrow! Oh, and the Secret project will be revealed then as well. See ya!