It's Finished!

I finally finished my pine box and it looks fantastic!

Finished Box!

It took a lot of work and a lot of patience to get here, but overall I'm really pleased with the result.  As a reminder, I bought this box at the local auction in December for only £18!

Original Box

When I bid on it, I couldn't really tell how big it was because it was surrounded by lots of other furniture.  I originally planned to use it as a coffee table in the living room.  Turns out, this thing is massive!  It was so big that I had to get it delivered by a truck.  (Incidentally, it's also big enough for my entire body to fit into...not that I've tried that.)  Though it didn't work out as a coffee table because it was too tall, it fit in perfectly as a side table for my new arm chair.

I had to finish the wood before I could use it as a table though.  I wanted it to be darker and I needed it to be at least water resistant so I could put drinks and food on it without worrying about damaging the table.  I turned to my good friend Pinterest for some inspiration. 

image from here

image from here

Notice a theme?  I was definitely interested in a darker wood with some rustic accents.  So I went to HomeBase to grab some walnut wood stain in a satin finish.

Before I could do any staining though, I first had to sand everything down.  I already owned an electric sander from when I refinished the table, so I got to work.  I had some help from the Spouses on Sabbatical.

Go S.O.S.!  Go!

After the initial sanding of the top and sides, I let it sit for more than a month.  Part of that was sheer laziness, and the other part was that I was traveling a lot.  Either way, not a lot got done.  I finally decided to get my tush in gear and called in some support. Thankfully, Rachel was glad to help out.

We started with the underside of the top of the box.  We thought this is the least visible spot, so if we messed up it wouldn't be too bad.  Luckily though, there was no need for concern.  It looked great from the get-go!  I love how the stain really brought out the notches and grains in the wood.

We had a minor accident that thankfully did not cause any permanent damage.

Oops!

A couple of hours later and we had this:

That was the easy part.  Then we had to sand down the inside of the box, which took another few hours.  Unfortunately, this wood wasn't in the best condition.  I'm pretty sure this was meant to be a tool box where the state of the wood is of no concern.  Since I wanted this piece to be functional as well as beautiful, I needed to get as many splinters out as possible.  It's no fun grabbing a blanket out of the trunk and getting assaulted by wood pieces.

If you ever need a sanding partner, I highly recommend Rachel.  She's awesome.

We kept painting, and painting and painting. 

And it was looking awesome!  One major downside is that I could still see raw wood in between each plank and it was driving me crazy!  I didn't have a brush small enough to fit in those crevices, so I used the next best thing: a Q-tip.

This was a very tedious process, and I probably used around 30 Q-tips, but it made such a difference.

See the raw wood in between the planks?

Using a Q-tip to stain the cracks

While it's not 100% perfect, it is 100% mine and I love it.  I can see myself owning this piece for a very long time.

So much storage!