THE CAVENDER DIARY

Who doesn’t  love a vintage steamer trunk.

It’s traveled, It has experience, It’s been on adventures.

I’ve had this old canvas trunk for almost 10 years now, but have never been in love with it. (another dumpster dive find)

No, It’s not Goyard, or Louis Vuitton. or anything else pedigreed. But it has some decent qualities.

It no longer has a hinge, so basically it is just a bottom with a separate lid. Like a box.

The gun-metal hardware is pretty suave. (it was brass once upon a time) But those honey colored wood strips wrapping delicately around it are by far it’s best feature. Too bad they blend into the brown-ISH canvas.

I’m not to sure who H.M.K. was.

I have a theory that he might be – “His Majesty (the) King”

Yeah Right. Wouldn’t that be cool? You know, ’til we paint over it. Ohhh yeah, we’re going to paint it.

BLACK, we paint everything black.

I’m sure some of you purists are gasping right now. But trust me on this one, it’s going to be way, much, more better.

I started with a roll of frog tape. If you have never used frog tape, give it a shot. It’s some kind of voodoo for painting.

I taped off everything that I didn’t want black – all the wood trim and the hardware.

Stripes were painted on trunks to help porters quickly identify a specific traveler’s luggage.

This one is a winner.

Of course, I found a cool Louis Vuitton with stripes too.

To give my trunk some much-needed stripes, I started by spraying the center white.

Then I add a couple of strips of frog tape wrapped around the whole trunk.

I spray another layer of white on top of the tape.

This is a trick to make sure all my bleed-thru (if there is any with the frog tape) is white…..pretty clever.

I painted the entire trunk black. (Ralph Lauren “Granite”, same paint as our fireplace) The center stripe (between the 2 strips of frog tape) I painted Martha Stewart “Barn” red.

No special reason for these specific colors – these were just leftover paints in the garage.

When I peel back the frog tape…..the beautiful crisp stripes are revealed.

Beautiful, but just a bit bright.

I sponged over them with a little glaze mixed with a few drops of brown paint to tone down the bright white.

In the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”, Jimmy Stewart searches for a big suitcase with plenty of room for stickers.

Stickers indeed.

All those ripped faded stickers….Drool

It just so happens that Jamie gave me a box set of travel sticker postcards for Valentine’s Day.

It was filled with 30 postcards inspired by vintage hotel labels taken from the Louis Vuitton archives.

I also found this tin of travel stickers on Amazon, 12 bucks didn’t seem like too much to pay.

This set offered more claim checks and shipping tags. I like all the red too, especially in the Cunard and White Star tags.

I’m a nut for all the graphics, but they were just a bit glossy for this project. Jamie scanned them and printed them on both card stock and regular paper, muting all the overly bright colors just slightly.

I laid them all out and gave each a spritz with coffee.

That’s right, coffee…..a spritz with a very watered down version and a second splattering with a strong one.

After they dried, and crumpled nicely too I might add, I just spread on Modpodge with a small brush……

….and then pressed them in place.

That takes care of the stickers……

Ready for the finished trunk?

Ba-Bam!!!

I think this could be a cool idea to reinvent an old dresser with stripes and travel stickers.

I painted the handles black too.

How beautiful are those wood strips now?

And it fits under the rustic coffee table we revamped last month.

Now that mangy old trunk looks like it’s been around the world.

Way, More, Much Better…

Go ahead………Admit it, I was right.