boxy-but-good part III: cruise control

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 Yet another Ikea Fira chest...(first here, and second here)

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I stained the whole thing a dark, dark cherry almost black (not using actual stain but water mixed with acrylic paints), then drew outlines using black pencil, the pattern is an old wallpaper fragment I found, then painted in the white bits, then laquered the whole thing with a shiny water-based sealer. This is not a DIY so much as just painting a box. But there was a lot of sanding involved.

boxy but good

box project. I took a storage box from Ikea and stained and painted it with an initial and some embellishments on it. this is the "Before" picture.

(albeit I did have to build it, with a little hair-pulling and some hammer-throwing)

this is the "After"

I was thinking about painting the whole thing a solid colour or cover it in some nice patterned paper, but in the end I wanted to keep the nice wood-grain, because otherwise I could have just bought a plastic or MDF box.

The whole thing was stained with water-based floor stain, "W" painted with acrylic gold paint, the leafy scrolls with oil paints, then the whole thing varnished with water based glue/varnishy stuff.