Old Wooden Chest Makeover with a vinyl stencil

My father-in-law had picked up this crate full of legos at a yard sale a year or two ago. Some of those legos then ended up at our house and some stayed for my boys to play with while at Nana’s. The wooden box sat outside on their patio for a long time.

As expected, it got fairly weathered and worn out. So, the other day they were cleaning things up and decided to add some handles and wheels to it. My mother-in-law was thinking she might like to use it in her living room for pillows and blankets, or maybe on the front porch with greenery at Christmas. So she asked me to give the old wooden chest a makeover.

So, she asked me to do something with it. Paint something on the side to make it special. Here is what I came up with:

Here are the steps I took in this old wooden chest makeover:

I sanded the wood down because it was a little rough feeling. Nobody like splinters!

I then applied a grey stain. I chose grey because I didn’t want the colour of the wood to change drastically, I just wanted to enhance it and even it out a bit. This is the grey stain I used.

Then I worked on the perfect design and cut it out on a sheet of adhesive vinyl. To make a vinyl stencil, you need to weed out everything that you want to be painted. Does that make sense? Basically, you take out the letters and leave the rest. The opposite to what you would normally do when you are weeding. Carefully apply your vinyl to the surface and make sure you burnish the cut edges so your paint doesn’t bleed.

I started with the H and painted it navy, peeled off the vinyl and hated it. So, I repainted over it by hand with black.

Then I applied the second piece of vinyl.

And used a cream on that one. I ended up doing two coats for better coverage. I then peeled it off right away. You don’t really want to wait too long before taking it off, because a seal will form between the paint and the vinyl and it might peel on you. I used one of those “dental pick tools” to get the centers of the letters out.

When you are layering different colours like this, make sure your paint is dry enough. I did have some of the black paint on the H come off when I peeled off the cream vinyl. But the H is a simple design and was easily touched up.

The Final Step was to apply a finish:

I used Clapham’s Beeswax Polish for a natural looking finish.

Also, I replaced this piece of trim on the front here that was missing. I went through a bit of trial and error process to get the colours to match. Can you tell it’s a new piece?

That’s “Little Lambie” perched on top of the books. He’s my eldest son’s favorite stuffy and is definitely well-loved!

There’s so many different ways of applying images to wood isn’t there? What is your favorite way?

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Linking here: Vintage Charm Party, The Cottage Market, Finding Silver Pennies