Refinishing a Cedar Chest

Finished!

This project had two inspirations- one is a need to store our outdoor furniture cushions at the stuga when not in use. The second is an attempt to mimic the vibe of a rosemaled chest similar to the one at the Snyder Crow Wing cabin.

Top of trunk at Snyder cabin

Front of trunk

I purchased a Lane cedar trunk for $30 on Facebook marketplace in early Feb. It was badly painted with black latex paint. I looked up the serial number on the bottom and learned it was made in 1988 (37 years old), and thus just missed the cutoff date for the Lane chest lock recalls (i.e. it has a lock release inside in case someone gets trapped). An online description describes it as having wheatfield decorations in front, in a medium oak finish, with deep storage dimensions of 5.8 cubic feet. It was missing the key (I bought one on Ebay for $9.53) and a replacement for a missing spring lid support ($7.50).

As purchased

Someone had spilled paint or something on the lid, and then just painted over it. Gross.

First step was to take off the hardware and try to cut off the little decorative doo-dads on the bottom. I asked Cara to try her little hand-held jigsaw, but the wood proved too thick and tough. Once we'd started, though, I was committed, so I ended up cutting them off with a handsaw (pretty inaccurate and working up a big sweat) and cleaning the inevitable rough edges with my Dremel sanding drum attachment. 

Used my dressmaking curve tool to get a smooth cut line to remove the decorative scroll

Now it was time to strip the black paint. I'll summarize this to say it basically took an entire weekend of multiple coats of stripper and serious scraping elbow grease. The latex paint was like glue to get off. It was not fun. 

In between multiple efforts to remove the paint

Another view of the horrible stripping job in case I forget too soon

After stripping and scraping and stripping and scraping and using a lot of mineral spirits, I was left with a surface that no longer had paint, but had areas of old varnish that would not come off. It was time to start sanding, but this is a veneer, so I knew I needed to do it carefully. I did a combination of hand and electric sanding with small grit. 

Before sanding

After sanding, vacuuming and wiping with mineral spirits

After a coat of pre-stain wood conditioner

The pre-stain wood conditioner gave it a darker color right away, and then I followed up with 2 applications of oil based red chestnut stain, applying it with a rag.

Two coats of stain

I then made the rookie mistake of applying a coat of oil-based polyurethane, apparently too quickly after the stain. I'm used to working with water-based products (and it's not like I'm some big expert with those, either). The poly WOULD NOT DRY. I had a fan blowing on it for days. It didn't help that the  weather has been unseasonably cool and damp. Over a week later, in desperation, I wiped it all down with mineral spirits to remove excess poly, then stuck the whole thing in the sun on one of our few dry days. After, it was improved, but still tacky in places so I decided to stick it in the back of the garage for at least 30 days to cure.

After 6 weeks, I had time to take the next step, which was stenciling a design with acrylic paint. I found some rosemaling-style stencils online, and I would have bought them, but they were the wrong dimensions for this project. Instead, I opted to make my own stencils so I could get them just the right size. I cast my laptop to the TV, and played with the size of the images until I got them in the dimensions I wanted. Then I taped roll paper over the TV and carefully (so as not to damage the TV screen) traced the designs onto paper.

I then traced the paper designs onto clear mylar sheets with a Sharpie and cut the stencils using an $18 hot knife tool, which was time-consuming but much better then the stencil cutting I've done with an Exacto knife.

I carefully centered the stencils on the chest, taped them, and painted. I used the Jo Sonja acrylic paints I had on hand from my rosemaling projects. 

After painting with stencil

I went over each color 2-3 times (with dry time in between) then peeled up the stencils, lightly sanded the ridges that built up in places on the paint edges, and did a final touch up by hand. Then it was on to top coating, this time I didn't want to risk the oil polyurethane and went with satin water-based instead, 3 coats over the stenciled areas and one coat over the rest to even the sheen. I reinstalled the hardware, including adding the second spring lift where a previous one had obviously been.

Finally finished!

We secured the chest very carefully in our trailer for the transport to the stuga and got it there safely.

Refinishing Furniture

We bought a lake cabin (our "stuga") a few months ago, and there are a number of furniture projects queued up. The cabin came furnished, and while we like and appreciate a number of the pieces, some had to go, and some need work/refinishing. We bought a little utility trailer to move a bunch of stuff back and forth.

I knew I wanted to replace the bar-height small table that came with the place to something that could seat at least 6, including us short people.

Wanted to replace this with a functional table

I bought a table and 6 chairs for $100 from FB Marketplace- I had to drive by myself with the trailer to Woodbury to get them as Andy was coaching volleyball. The nice couple helped me load the table into the trailer and I fit the 6 chairs (barely) into Andy's SUV. I failed to get a "before" picture of the table- it was in rough shape, with numerous marker stains and gouges. I got the sense that many a kid had done their homework there over the years. I cleaned every surface well (and it needed it) with Simple Green all-purpose cleaner. I used Citristrip chemical stripper on the table top to strip some of the top coat (it was tough because there was so much top coat) and then sanded it with my Ryobi corner cat electric sander . This was the first time I'd used chemical stripper. The custom-tinted stain I bought to match did not work at all (I brought it to Hirshfield's to recycle- total strike out) but a combination of 2 old stains I had in the basement got me pretty close. I applied 6 coats of polyacrylic with a new blue paint sponge to the table top. For the chairs, I had to strip and sand three damaged seat areas, and there were a number of legs and spindles that needed a couple of applications of glue to secure them. It was a project with many steps. The final results are good, especially for the $100 investment, and these are nice solid wood.

We finally sold the previous table and chairs on Facebook Marketplace after continuously marking them down for weeks- they ultimately went to a college kid for $25.

Damaged finish on seat- example of what many of the pieces looked like

Refinished table- I don't have a "before" picture, but trust me-this is much better

First furniture delivery to the stuga with one nightstand, 3 chairs and Weber grill

Finished set 

Once I'd tackled the table, I was feeling more confident with stripping, so I embarked on this cedar chest project, which gets its own post. 

Meanwhile, on a weekend visit to Madison, Meg put me to work stripping and sanding a table they'd got from Jen. It's finish was worn off in several areas. I'm learning that the tops of tables typically have a lot of finish on them and are very stubborn to strip, and this one took about 5 hours of direct labor after an overnight soak with the stripper.

Original condition

After several hours of stripping and sanding, needs stain

Table is done

Now with a little learning under my belt and stripper still in the bottle, I decided to tackle two tables from our basement that were over 30 years old and had scratches and wear, including tooth marks from when our kids were toddlers. I did the end table first, and in typical fashion I got right into the work before even snapping a before picture. Once stripped, which took a while even for a small table, I saw the wood was in good condition and cleaned it with mineral spirits but didn't sand it. What I learned is that the visible damage was really restricted to the topcoat. I applied 5 coats of water-based polyacrylic with a sponge. (I'm now hesitant to use oil-based polyurethane because it has taken forever to dry on the cedar chest).

End table refinished

The coffee table has more surface area and was a bear to strip- multiple applications, wait times and scrape sessions.

Andy was excited about my sudden urge to do the tables during a break between jobs

Coffee table before

Coffee table before- site of a previous nail polish spill

Still not done after the 5th application of stripper and scraping

I applied three coats of oil-based stain, and I still wasn't entirely happy with it so I decided to try a gel stain to even the color a bit. I couldn't get the right color gel stain in our local stores so I had to order off Amazon. They sent the wrong product, so I had to return and reorder. 

Coffee table is refinished

We needed a tiny table, less than 13" wide, as a bedside table for the stuga. I found this little wood table/plant stand on FB Marketplace for $10 and a drive to Chanhassen. It had a few shallow scratches so I did a quick overcoat of stain and then polyacrylic.

In other furniture-moving anecdotes, there was a motorized sit-to-stand chair at the stuga that we moved to the Snyder cabin so they could use it there.

After searching for weeks, I bought a pair of nice Pier 1 night stands for our bedroom on Facebook Marketplace.

Outdoor metal furniture at the stuga needed cleaning and repainting.

Before

After- Rust-Oleum in Heritage Red, satin finish

After- table and 6 chairs, flat black

Rust spots on the 2 chaises, before

These wooden benches were in bad shape. They'd been living outside and with our wet spring, the wood was waterlogged and weak. I started by storing them in the garage for a few months just to dry out, then scrape them. I had the idea to paint them in the colors of the Swedish flag, the color compositions of which are published, but I learned there is no way to request paint mixed to standard RGB color formulae. The best I could do was pick color swatches that were very close and hope for the best. These were time-consuming to paint- so many surfaces. I primed each twice and then painted twice. With the change in colors, it felt like I was washing the paint brush all the time.

Before

Before

Scraped and ready for priming

The stuga cane with two picnic tables. One had bent legs supporting a seat and that went to live with uncle Max who thought he could repair it. The other had a bunch of lichen growing in between the planks and rotting support boards that had become a home for an ant colony. I bought a new support plank at Menards and had them cut it to the right lengths, then primed and painted the support boards. We disassembled the table (which was hard because the screws and nuts had rusted together) and I started painting the boards with opaque stain, and of course ran out before finishing, requiring another run and custom stain mix.

There is a rocking chair that looks like it became a chew toy for some dog. I hand sanded the ends as best as I could and tried some stain.

Here is a little "Duncan Phyfe" style drop leaf table that had a damaged surface. This must have been old-style varnish, because the stripper bubbled it up within the first application. Then a sanding, and a couple of coats of the same gel stain that I used for the basement coffee tables, followed by an oil-based top coat. This piece was missing one of its bronze "toe caps" and I tried to talk myself into ignoring it, because this is just "for the cabin," but I couldn't live with it. If I'm going to work to refinish a piece, let's do it right. Hunting for a matching replacement proved impossible, and you have to be careful about the sizes because these toe caps were made in many sizes, but I finally found a set of 4 in the right size on Ebay for $26.

Table before stripping

After stripping

After gel staining, 3 coats of oil-based top coat and one of water-based topcoat

Matching feet applied with small nails

Here is a mid-century hutch cabinet made by St John's Table Co in Cadillac, MI (active  1907-1985). There is damage on the counter surface.