Goal #8: Steamer Trunk Bar

Clyde Steamer Trunk Bar:  $649.99
Source: www.worldmarket.com

One day, while surfing the net, I came across this beautiful trunk bar.  I fell so completely and irrevocably in love with it, that I vowed to one day own it.  It comes with a hefty price, though, so I resigned myself to just bookmarking it on Pinterest until I not only have the space, but the moolah to accommodate this.  I couldn't resist showing a friend my object of desire, and my friend immediately said to me the magic words:  "You can do this yourself.  Steamer trunks are a dime a dozen on Craigslist for $40."

Less than 5 days later, I've acquired this beauty for $20:

The brand of the steamer trunk.  We will do more research on it later.

A random, cool sticker that was on the trunk that we could not save.

Today was the first time we did anything more than just play with the steamer trunk.  We started a rough strip of the weird plastic-y green material that was starting to peel off of the trunk.  Underneath, we found a beautiful grain wood.  We are definitely going to stain this puppy after we are done stripping it.

Our progress so far.  Some parts were easier to remove than others.  On top is a putty knife we
used to help wedge under the green material and scrape (unsuccessfully) off the old glue.

As we pulled off the reinforced borders, we saw some of the green material that
had been preserved from the reinforced layer.  Can you see how much it has
faded?  We also found the original texture to be different, somewhat glossy.

Partway through the process, we were curious how the studs were nailed into the trunk, so we checked out the inside.  Underneath the top of the steamer trunk, there was a padded area, preventing us from seeing the actual wood.  So, we decided to remove the padding and strip part of the interior.

My lovely husband would like me to say that he is aware that a putty knife is not
a screwdriver.  It was, however, the only tool available in our possession that
could unscrew the metal border around the padding.

The only part of this steamer trunk that got completely stripped today.

Also, as we were stripping the trunk, we found that the many studs that were driven into the trunk were very easy to remove.  To make it easier to strip, we decided to try to remove all the metal parts first for each section we work on.  First, we have to go out to purchase the correct tool to remove the nails (see below), so that was the end of our progress.

Again, my husband is aware that this screw driver is not the correct tool to
remove these studs.  Hence, our subsequent trip to Home Depot

So we really didn't do a lot of work on the steamer trunk (maybe 1 hour's worth of work), but we did discover a lot about it and are forming something of a plan as to how we can go about restoring this trunk.

Our Plan:

Make a drawing of the steamer trunk, numerically label each metal piece we are planning to remove both on the drawing and on the metal piece itself.  Once all the metal pieces are labeled and removed, we will continue stripping the inside and outside of the trunk.  After, we will sand and stain the outside.  I'm thinking a nice ebony color, but not too dark so that we won't see the grain.  We'll see.  =P