Finished trunk...

 

It is finished!

And I'm really happy about how it turned out.

I tried to keep the trunk "as-is" as much as possible, minus the stinky wall paper, so after sanding the interior, I applied a MinWax penetrating oil stain in "natural" that revives the wood and maintain its true color.  There are many knotholes which makes the wood inferior and is why I think these trunks were wallpapered.  As I took the trunk apart, I noticed there was tape across the seams and over the knotholes to smooth it over for wallpaper.  I like the character and imperfection of knotholes, but they are a little rough and rustic.  The musty-trunk smell is now gone, but it has acquired the smell of the stain which is fine with me.  

On the exterior of the trunk, I rubbed some natural stain over the wood and oiled the steel exterior and leather with Nor-V-Gen oil -- a boot oil we use on our boots.  It helped to shine up the metal and removed dirt and gunk that was there and it deepened the color of the leather.  There is a blue-gray tinge to the outer wood slats that I wanted to preserve and of course, all the bumps and dings and scratches remain  -- the trunk earned them.   I haven't decided what I will store in it yet, but I have moved it to the living room as a side table for the big leather chair.  I think it looks smart and brings a lot of character to the room.

Old Trunk Renovation...

 I've had this old metal trunk for several years.  It's not a family heirloom or anything, but I liked it and bought it from an antique shop basement.  I've used it for a coffee table and for a luggage table for guests, but I've never stored anything in it because it STINKS!  It has that musty, old, stink that just doesn't want to go away no matter what I do.  I've tried kitty litter, baking soda, ground coffee, and although the stink might wane, it never has completely gone away.

Well, for some reason, TODAY I decided this musty, old trunk was going out in the hot prairie sun for a de-stinkafication session.  I read lots of things to deodorize old trunks, some of which I've already tried, but I tried the new-to-me remedy of spraying vodka with clove oil all over in the trunk and then letting it sit in the sun.  Perhaps a week of sunshine would get it there, but just one day didn't.  Frustrated, I decided to do something drastic!

 See the inside of this trunk?  It's wallpapered.  The entire inside has glued-on wallpaper.  Of course, much of it was coming loose, but a LOT of it was well-stuck-down.  I decided one of the best ways to de-stinkify this baby was to take off the wallpaper.  This tray comes out and it's so warped that I may discard it or ask CarpenterSon to make me a something similar.  The rest of the trunk was wallpapered too and so I began.  I thought I could maybe sand it off with my disc sander.  I started with the lid and it went fairly well, but OH my GOODNESS there was a lot of dust -- glue, paper, and wood.  OOoooof!  I didn't think I could do the whole trunk this way so I used a spray bottle and dampened the wallpaper with some water.  Then DIL told me that I should add laundry softener to the water and see if it helped.  I'm not sure if it did or not, but I sprayed a whole lotta water on that paper before it started to loosen.  My trusty 5-in-one paint tool worked great to scrape off the paper.  Still, it was a big job.  Bigger than I anticipated, but that's how these things go, don't you think?

I got the majority of the wallpaper off the interior and figured I'd sand the rest off.  I want to smooth the wood surface down anyway, but for today, this was my stopping point.  I sprayed some Simple Green onto the wood and gave it a wipe with a terry towel just for good measure.  I thought it would be helpful to further de-stink it.  This evening the smell is MUCH better.  I'll let the trunk dry thoroughly.  I moved it into the garage for the night, but I'll set it out in the sun again tomorrow for a deep dry before I sand it down.

The plan is to stain the interior wood with a Danish Oil stain.  No poly finish.  They say that you ought to leave the wood to breathe without sealing it, and for some reason, that makes sense to me.   I may give it a linseed oil rub down too. I'll rub some steel wool over the rusty metal parts and then clean the exterior and oil the wood and leather straps.  I have no intention of changing it or adding new parts.  I like the well-worn, well-used look, but I do want the interior to be stink free so I can store some things in it.

I don't know yet what I'm going to stash in it.  Maybe board games on the bottom and card games on the top tray.  Or maybe some quilts and blankets (depending on the smell).  It would be a fun dress-up trunk too. The Grandies think it's a treasure chest so maybe I should hide some treasure in it!

What kind of treasure would you hide in a trunk?
If you have renovated a smelly, old trunk, do you have any tips?
More to come as the project progresses!