Cedar Chest Restoration
[Oct. 1, 2015]
At local thrift shop
Restored
A WARNING about chests of this type: If you have small children, there is a risk of them playing by shutting themselves up in the chest and suffocating. Not an issue in this case, but if I knew that this chest would be used around small children I would drill air holes in the back or bottom of the chest.
I just happened to run across an old cedar chest at a local thrift shop - the sign on it said "coffee table, $10." On closer inspection it turned out to be an old cedar chest with the lags or base removed. The chest was solid wood, with all hardware intact (but missing the lock key, of course). For $10 it was too good to pass up so I bought it and took it home, with the intention of fixing it up for my son who was looking for a blanket chest.
The interior of the chest was in good condition, but the cedar aroma was very faint. I sprayed the interior with cedar oil spray - pretty strong at first but after a day or two it subsided to a pleasant cedar smell.
Some of the hinge screws had been replaced at some point with wrong sized screws, and some wood had torn out on the right hand hinge. I restored the missing wood with "wood epoxy" and replaced all of the bad screws with proper sized brass screws (extra length to make sure they would hold).
One of the lid retaining hardware pieces was slightly bent out of shape, so I removed it, bent it back into shape, and reinstalled it.
I could probably find or make a key for the latch, but this chest will never be locked anyway, so I won't bother.
The top of the chest was covered in wood laminate, a section of which had broken off and been lost. I patched the section of missing laminate with wood putty, and then sanded the entire top (see below - the light stripe is where the missing laminate was patched).
Left side partially sanded - dark area not yet sanded.
Right side completely sanded.
After sanding the top was stained ebony and then coated with several coats of polyurethane varnish. The original sections of the chest were wiped down with "scratch cover" furniture restorer.
I made a new base out of 1-1/2" thick clear pine (basically a heavy skirt with a center reinforcement), then stained and polyurethaned the new base. The base is fastened to the chest from below with four screws, and can be easily removed if necessary.
Estimated total cost (including original $10 purchase, but not including labor) - about $40.