How We Refinished an Antique Trunk DIY

We have found several old trunks that weren’t very pretty but we knew had potential. We don’t really like the look of many painted trunks we have seen. So we decided to go with as minimal amount of change to the trunk, keeping pretty rustic but enhance the beauty of the wood.

We started with this….

The canvas fabric on the outside was pretty much worn away in most spots but enough there to cover the beauty of the wood…

So we sanded the wood just enough to take away the fabric and superficially sand the wood. Needed a razor to get the fabric from under the wood slats in some spots. Once the cleaning up was completed,  we coated the wood with Tung Oil mixed with a touch of  Golden Pecan stain. We couldn’t decide whether to polish up the metal but decided to leave it rusty.

We love the rustic but beautiful results!

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