My trunk table is a project I completed long before my blogging days, but I thought it would be nice to share it with you as I have received a lot of compliments on it from friends and family. This wasn’t a project I had planned out and needed to go find the supplies for. I think the best projects are the ones that aren’t planned because you find a piece of inspiration and just run with it. I found my trunk at Salvation Army piled in with some other luggage. It was $10 and I instantly knew it would be a killer table… with a lot of love that is (I typically buy things of this nature if you couldn’t already tell).
A photo I shared on Instagram that makes this trashy trunk look way more glam than it actually was.
The first photo was after I cleaned this beast and the second photo was after I slapped on a coat of chalkboard paint I had on hand. I thought about writing on it with chalk, but I decided that didn’t really go with the style of my house so I let it be. I also thought about painting the brown metal parts, but I didn’t have a good color for it and I thought it made the trunk look just shabby enough with the fresh paint. I still want to go back and try to clean it up a little bit more because there are some rusty spots that don’t look so hot.
The inside of the trunk had some sort of ugly contact paper inside and it smelled mustier than a century old mummy. I tried to scrape the paper off but it didn’t work very well so I got as much as I could and vacuumed it out. To get the smell out I put cat litter in the box because I heard that will trap all the smells and when you dump it out the smell will be gone. It worked I think but then it just smelled like dusty cat litter. The new inside of the trunk is shelf liner but I totally bought the wrong kind. I bought the squishy stuff not the plain paper kind. I was in a rush and I really liked the design on it, but it cost like $10 and I ended up having to buy two rolls of it. Seriously a dumb mistake. I used mod podge to stick the shelf liner in so then my trunk smelled like glue instead of cat litter. I think that’s a good thing? Eventually I sprayed Febreze in it and it took the smell away. 🙂
An up close of the front hardware. This is one of my favorite parts about the piece.
I added this on so the lid would stay open while grabbing out blankets.
I measured how tall I wanted the legs to be based on the height of the couch. I stained them using the vinegar and steel wool technique except I used the kind with soap in it and tried to rinse out the soap. I don’t recommend that. You can buy plain steel wool at the hardware store.
So what do you think? Were my expensive mistakes still worth it?
See You Around!
Lauren ❤
P.S. I had to finish this post up on my phone as I’m headed up to Ludington State Park to camp! Yay 😀 Enjoy your weekend!