A Bit O' Whimsy: hope chest

Earlier this week I promised I would show the after picture of my mom's marriage chest. I was on a "vacation" to my hometown and told her I'd paint some furniture as her birthday present. My parents have had this chest forever and I have a lot of fond memories from this piece of furniture. This is an old cedar chest and has the most lovely smell in the world. My mom would store all her most prized possessions from other countries that she and my dad had visited. I would often sneak a peek at all the beautiful dolls, tablecloths, and lacquer painted boxes my mom meant to keep away from us kids.

She also stored all of our Christmas stockings away for the year in the chest. I loved the cedar smell that would come pouring out of it as we would excitedly decorate for Christmas.

I chose to paint the chest white, I felt it was a "busy" piece and needed to be lightened up. I didn't dark wax it, I felt like there was just a lot going on already with all the faux drawers and hardware. I put some ornate antique silver knobs and did a small amount of distressing. I would never dream of painting the inside and risk covering up that real cedar wood smell :)

Now that I'm older and wiser my parents have bought me a chest of my own. I have since painted it and recovered it and will probably paint it many times, but it will always hold many prized possessions that I hope to pass down to my family. It is however, lacking the most important part, the smell!