Wednesday 4 April 2012

An Old Cedar Chest

I have a question to ask.  You know how there was for a while a fashion of 'distressed furniture'?  Seriously - people would paint a piece and then damage it to make it look old again...  Well, my question is

How distressed is TOO distressed?

Because I'm having a hard time bringing myself to paint this.  Fix the hinge so it shuts straight, repair the lock so it hangs right, sand down the inside tray so that it slides easily, all those things, yes.




But cover those little cartoon characters? 



 I'm not sure I can.



This was my toy box from my little girl bedroom in Oklahoma City.  It sat in the bottom of my closet for, well, about 35 years.  Mom put those decal stickers on her cedar chest to make it mine.



It currently holds a collection of video tapes (soon to be turned into DVDs or given away).  My aim is that it will eventually hold photo albums - of photos scanned and backed up.  Being so hesitant to renovate it, I just made a cream colour gathered-skirt cover for it out of heavy weight twill. 

The chest is labeled and the Internet tells me that it was made by the Ed Roos Co. of Forest Park, Illinois.  ER Co went out of business in 1951. 






The desire for cedar chest just went away with the building of new homes that had lots of closets, and the insect population dropped off making the need for the protection of cedar no longer needed They started is 1916 and built every know type of cedar chest known to man. It was said that at full production they went through 1500 board feet of cedar every year." 

It's not particularly valuable as a collector's item.  So,  have you any suggestions about what to do with this cedar chest?

4 comments:

Lauren said...

Keep it the way it is.

BigLittleWolf said...

I think you should keep it exactly as you would like, Shelley. Like you, I have a chest (a blanket chest, from New England). It is by my bed, very old, very marked up, with its original red paint from 1800 or so.

I couldn't care less what anyone else thinks of it. I adore it. It held pieces of my childhood, and no doubt, the childhoods of others - or their blankets!

Those objects that have meaning for us - and I realize we cannot keep all of them - nonetheless ought to be treated with great respect.

(I also remember that period of "distressing" furniture not to mention picture frames!)

Anonymous said...

Could you remove the decals without destroying them, and place them in an album as memorabilia? Then perhaps you would feel comfortable painting it.

Though, a cover sounds lovely too.

Suburban Princess said...

I say keep it the way it is and if the look bothers you...cover it with fabric :O)