Glossy Black Campaign Chest

 

I seem to be finally tackling all of the projects that have been in the garage for over a year like the last piece I did, the White and Java MCM nightstand. I snagged this little campaign chest from the Habitat store last year but it had some problems I had to deal with. I needed to sand the drawers to fit and actually close. If you ever have a piece where the drawers stick or don’t close well – sand the bottom of the drawers. For these I focused on the bottom edge of the drawer front and the side rails on the bottom of the drawer so that the drawer dropped down. Unlike most campaign pieces I’ve seen, this one is made by Drexel and actually had wood drawer guides instead of metal ones. I still had to sand down the top side edge of the drawer fronts so the didn’t scrape as the drawers closed. The other reason I was avoiding the piece was because if it’s laminate top, but the good thing is, it just took some priming.

I used a metal scraper to get the brass corners off and a hammer to pull out the nails. After all of the hardware was off I sanded the chest with my electric palm sander using 150 grit sandpaper. I also made sure to really rough up the laminate top to help the primer adhere. Once it was vacuumed and wiped down I applied 2 coats of Zinsser Cover Stain oil based primer with a foam brush to the top. I decided on a classic black for this little dresser and used 4 coats of General Finishes “Lamp Black” milk paint (it’s the best black, I love it every time I use it). Once it had cured I sealed it with 3 coats of GF’s high performance gloss poly which made this piece look extra classy!

Normally with campaign pieces I clean all of grime off of the hardware with some Bar Keeper’s Friend. I did scrub these, but it didn’t do much since they were not very tarnished. I actually am really happy they are not a bright shiny gold, but have more of worn brassy look to them. It suits the piece well. I kept the original nails that hold on the brass corners. I considered replacing them with simple nails, but the pyramid nail head they have is unique, so it stuck around. I then staged it with a gallery wall of free printables I’ve collected. I finally took the time to get them all printed yesterday (this is about half of them) so I had some art for the walls. Now I need to find a place to store them all… it looks like I need to add some more storage to my room 😉