Relining a Trunk

I mentioned a bit ago that I was working on this project but hadn't finished it. Well, I just did the other day and holy crap it was a project and a half. Let me preface everything by saying, I'm not the most crafty of people. I would love to say I am and I usually have awesome ideas but my ability to follow through and have them look like how I want? Yeah not so much. However, as grad school drives me into a slow form of madness brought on by debits and credits, I find my creativity needing to come out somehow (you can only make debits and credits and amortization so creative after all). Enter this project stage left.

My grandfather was a big trunk collector. He liked to pick them up cheap at flea markets and garage sales in various conditions and then take his time to revitalize them and turn them back to how gorgeous they were. He hasn't done any trunk restoration lately but my mother still has some of his earlier projects and a few of the trunks he picked up and I was able to play with one of them.

There are multiple ways to seal and restore trunks and many different How-To's online for those. I decided to go with a (what I thought was) very simple route and stick with fabric. To start, you need:

     .: fabric

     .: trunk

     .: sharp fabric scissors

     .: cloth tape measure

     .: spray glue

     .: fabric glue

The spray glue is what I found to be the best adhesive for this project. I used Elmer's (the time tested brand from my childhood) and it worked well but I should warn, that you do need to move fast so the glue doesn't have a chance to dry too quickly. The fabric glue is great if you have a few stray ends and pieces that need to be put down and you don't want to use the spray but use too much and the fabric glue can clump and show through the fabric.

Also! Be aware that excessive use of spray glue in a small, non-ventilated place can lead to headaches and a lot of giggling. Please learn from my mistakes and open a window before you fall to the ground laughing because everything has just got super, super funny. 

But right! The trunk! So this is the trunk I was talking about. As I was saying, the first thing you really need to do is clean up the inside of the trunk as best as you can. Mine had a lot of stray dirt, wood, dust and nails in the corners of the bottom that needed to be vacuumed out. In addition, there was a lot of old wallpaper still attached to the inside of the trunk lid. Using a scrapper (because I believe in using the technical terms for things) I got off all of the loose pieces. Anything securely glued on, I left rather than try to dig up the wood but if it could come off, I peeled it. 

This took a lot longer than I really expected, to be honest but, I just pulled up the Netflix and started an X-Files marathon while I was working on this project. Worked like a charm. 

I started with the bottom of the trunk. It was square and what I felt was probably going to be the easiest part of the whole project. I measured the length and width of the bottom with the cloth tape measure and then did the same on the fabric, cut out my piece and laid it down on the bottom. I found it was easier to lay the piece down and then pick up the corners and spray the bottom of the trunk with glue and move around the edges that way rather than spraying it all together and hoping it laid flat correctly on the first go. By spraying the edges and moving around the piece I was able to do it more precisely. I then moved the trunk around so that the part I was working on next was always on the bottom (made it easier to lay the fabric pieces down that way). 

From the bottom I moved to the top of the trunk. It was rounded at the top which did pose some issues with the sides. Thankfully, the handy pair of sharp scissors are useful for cutting off any excess bits of fabric and the scrapper was actually able to push any remaining pieces under the edges. So all in all, the top and bottom of the trunk done and it wasn't so bad! 

See? I thought the top and the bottom worked out rather well all told. Any loss pieces or bits of fraying fabric can be snipped off with the scissors and as long as you stand at least this far away from the trunk, it looks really good, right? Well. Now came the really hard part.

The trunk had edges all the way around the inside of the bottom of the trunk where a shelf rested. It wouldn't seem like the shelf would be the difficult part, but with rounded edges and a lot of fiddly bits, the shelf was a pain in the posterior, let me tell you. This is the shelf that goes on the inside of the trunk here to the left. 

 And here is the trunk shelf part of the way through the process. This shelf took me all told, an entire day by itself and countless amounts of spray glue. The edges are beveled and rounded and do not make themselves easy on me (as you can see by all the small loose pieces surrounding the shelf on the floor.

 But! I persevered like any good hero in any good novel does and I eventually got it covered in fabric. In all honestly, it is probably not my best work. In fact, I think many people could do a better job with this shelf than I did but the point is it is done! And... well, again, from far away you can't tell any of my mistakes. So just, don't go up close to the shelf at all. Stay far, far away from it.

So the final, finished project after its all been done and completed: 

Have to say, not too bad for my first refinishing job. It is perfect in my room holding my extra sheets and towels. The only problem is I really like the interior fabric of the trunk and I really don't want to close it...