The Beauty of the Beast

There are still a lot of ideas making it from the "TO DO" list to the "FINISHED" pile and I've got another lovely one to share this morning.

Back in the Fall I purchased this old Tin trunk at a garage sale and wrote about it here:

When we moved in January it went into the playroom to hold all the dress-up clothes.It sat happily for the first hour there before I realized it could be a problem. A "gosh-the-sharp-edges-on-the-lid-could-chop-my-children's-fingers-off" kind of problem.
I thought about putting some sort of cushioning on the edges such as weather stripping and hovered over the chest every time the children wanted to play with it's contents. Only Mother could open and close the chest, and this was frankly cramping their style.

 Then  I realized it had the potential for yet another problem, a "hmmm-I-really-hope-one-of-them-doesn't-ever-get-the-bright-idea-to-lock-the-other-inside-this-beast" type of problem.

Something had to change...and change is a good thing around here.

Lovely beast made it's way into the living room to be used as coffee table and dress-up clothes were moved to non-chopping-locking bins of practical goodness.

Only one problem left: the "gosh-this-trunk-is-a-very-wrong-shade-of-blue-for-my-living-room", problem.

So I decided to paint it. First I had to tape off all the lovely weathered metal stripping becase it is absolutely lovely and has a great patina I really wanted to preserve (I love that I had the chance to use the word "patina" cause that means I'm talking about something lovely and old.).

The taping part of this project took me FOUR days of painstakingly cutting little strips of painters tape and covering every. single. strip. and stud. on. the. blinking. thing.

Then I painted it with Rustoleum Painter's Choice in Blossom White. It took 2 cans and I did it in the garage in the freezing cold, painting for a few minutes and then coming in the house to thaw out my fingers in the sink.
 

After painting the whole thing, I looked on the side of the can and saw that the instructions suggest you not use the paint in less than + 10 degrees Celsius. (it was minus 12).

At last she was dry and her stink was gone and back into the living room she came for the tape to be pulled off and her true self revealed...

Oh how we like beast's true self.

I had to pace myself with all the tape stripping because I got so excited after the first strip came off and I saw it, that I wanted to attack the whole thing voraciously.

But slowly and steadily she became the coffee table trunk that is now sitting pretty in the living room for a place to rest feet and drinks while reading or snuggling or dreaming, crocheting... you name it.

Oh and my kids have all their fingers, so this makes a mother happy too. 

Cheers.