Sometime ago a friend brought over to the shop an old lane cedar chest made in 1953. The veneer was coming off and it was in generally sad shape. He was wondering what I could do with it. He knew I had a propensity to take repair work and shove it into the upstairs of my shop and basically it stays up there ,never to see the light of day again, because I’m not really interested in it.
What saved the project for him was the chest was heavy, I didn’t really want to haul it up the stairs in the shop, so it rested right on the main floor of my shop, in my way and underfoot.
A interesting sidenote about the cedar chest was my parents had the exact same cedar chest of the same year in our house when I grew up. The chest rested in my bedroom. I came down with measles as a child; back in the days before you could get inoculated with an evil vaccine that would protect you. I ended up sick scratching like a monkey.
Dad felt sorry for me so he set up a target in front of the chest. Used Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs as a back stop. We both stood at the other side of the house, took a Daisy BB gun and did some target shooting. Being excellent marksmen we hit the target consistently in the same spot. We also went right through the catalogs and destroyed a five inch circle of the chest. Mom was not happy!! However the cedar chest stayed with them all their life , and those BB holes made for a good story and fun memories.
Let’s talk about a total rebuild. The exterior of the chest was beyond hope, however the interior incense cedar box was in excellent shape. I decided to use that box as a liner for an antique reclaimed pine exterior. I had some really nice antique pine,very old,came out of Tennessee. Really old white pine gets a beautiful patina with age, the only finish you need is a clear finish. I used some reproduction hardware
We decided to do an upholstered seat . It turned out well . Just have to make sure their kids don’t shoot targets in the house
