I was contacted by a new client. She had this trunk that was from her grandfather. Her and her parents used it as a coffee table when she was growing up. It was now in her possession and looked like this:
Kind of cool but needing some freshening up. She asked me to remove the hardware, paint it silver and paint the trunk itself white. It was going to go in her daughter's room. I got to work right away. I began sanding and I saw some writing under the paint.
I wondered if it would be possible to save the lettering. I sanded carefully until most of the paint was removed. This was on the back of the trunk so I contacted the customer and asked if we should tape this off, paint around it and it would always be there or if she just wanted me to paint over it.
She said she'd like to keep the back visible. I continued working on the trunk and when I started sanding the top, this appeared. Again I contacted her and asked what she wanted to do. She decided she liked the rustic look and asked me to keep as much of the lettering as I could.
This is what we ended up with! She loves all the history that is in the trunk and now everyone can see where it originated from. What a great piece!
