A (cedar) chest redo.

I had to throw the "cedar" part in there -- you know what I'm sayin'? (Hang in there till the end for the winner of The Sheet Boutique giveaway!) Remember this lovely I found last week for $40?:
At first glance, it was perfectly lovely on it's own, but the lid had a yellowish paint on it, drip marks and a really awful stencil. I think the person that painted it put too much poly on top that yellowed the paint and made the stencil bleed all over the place.

All I needed to do was sand down the paint and the stencil a little and then paint over it. Easy project right? Ummm...NEVER say those words out loud peeps. Karma comes around every. time.

The person who had painted it before did not prepare it well before painting, so as I was sanding the paint started peeling right off:
I could just pick at it and peel off strips. Nuts. This meant one thing -- I had to strip the whole thing down. (Oooo I am going to get some interesting searches off of "chest" and "strip" in the same post.)

I haven't had to use paint stripper for years, I avoid it if I can. This time I used water-based stuff and I really liked it:

The instructions say you can even use this inside, but I wouldn't recommend that. It's super easy to use though -- just glob it on.

If their are only one or two coats of paint, it should only take one or two applications. If there are about eleventy billion, it will take a couple hours and a few more applications:

Gah. If you ever need to do this, use fine steel wool to get the paint out of the detailed areas.

Then, I put on a couple coats of primer and then about five coats of paint, because the wood was quite literally sucking it right up. This is when one of my little painting tricks comes in handy:

You can keep a brush or roller without cleaning it for quite a while if you just bag it up.

This was the result:

It still needed somethin. Think Sarah, think.

Oh yes, the poor (wo)man's custom cushion:

Yet again, I just wrapped the fabric around the foam and hot glued it. Serious folks. When I get an extra $100 for thicker foam, more fabric and a professional, I'll get it done for reals.

Here is Stink Eye Sister modeling it:

Oh yeah, did I mention she's baaaaaack??

It still needed something, so I held my breath, crossed my fingers and distressed it just a bit:

LURVE!!!

I had a hall table in this spot before, but had been contemplating moving it down more into our foyer anyway. I did some rearranging and really like how it looks now:
Now we have a "real" foyer set up and it's so warm and cozy! It's a little more in that spot than I'm used to there, but I love it. I thought about moving the art around but like how it works for now -- it may not stay for long: The chest is now the perfect spot to sit, and it will be great during parties -- everyone seems to congregate out in this room. I need to install some safety hinges and then it will hold all this too:
Well, not the cat. All the toys. Gotta love that. :)

The randomly picked winner of The Sheet Boutique pillow giveaway is Julianne Hendrickson!! Julianne, please e-mail me and I'll get you in touch with Cara!

Next up -- my tile project! I love it! And I am honored to be featured at a great site tomorrow -- stay tuned!