Once again, I found inspiration for this project from this blog. I had originally planned to make the trunk in a size that would also be appropriate for a coffee table... but that didn't pan out and the trunk turned out to be pretty big. I think it's actually going to be perfect for storing blankets and pillows and looking cool at the foot of a bed or something. Now I'll just have to make something else that can be used as a coffee table!
This was my most ambitious construction project thus far, so I actually had to draw up plans for what I wanted to do. Almost like I knew what I was doing or something! (Probably not totally necessary, but it kept me more sane during the process.)
We had a giant stack of pallets in the garage, so Josh helped me pull them apart and make piles of wood. I went about trying to find the coolest pieces in the pile to make my trunk with. I'm a fan of pallet wood because you often get pieces that are roughed up or have strange patterns worn into them, or sometimes just funky with knots or bark still attached. For the outside of the trunk, I was able to piece together 1x4s from the pallets with a few extra boards we already had. The first step was to cut everything to size and make sure all four sides of my trunk were laid out correctly. This is where I ended up making the trunk larger than I had originally planned, because I didn't want to have to cut down the width of any of the boards- I just liked the way I'd arranged it and wanted to keep it.
The next step was to paint everything, since I did not want the whole trunk to look like it was painted as one big unit. I was originally going to paint the whole thing gray and purple, but Josh said he thought I should use red. So I used gray, purple, AND red. This turned out to not be at all what he had in mind, and he has since told me numerous times that he does not like the colors on the trunk. At all. Too bad, mister. I painted each board individually, sanded down the paint to expose some of the wood and make it looked sort of weathered, and then doused everything with a dark-colored wood stain. [And for the record, I do think it would have looked better with only gray and purple, but it's done now and it's growing on me. From now on, I won't ask for opinions on color.]
After all the paint and stain had dried and set in, it was time to build the main compartment. I used 2x4s from the pallets to hold everything together from the inside. And a TON of wood screws. (This is the point at which I managed to punch a giant hole through my thumb with an electric screwdriver... but we don't need to dwell on that.) So basically the main box of the trunk is constructed out of pallet boards and a few other spare boards we had around the garage. I didn't take very detailed photos, but there are 2x4s in each corner, and also one down the middle of both long sides of the box.
After the box was finished, I had to actually spend a tiny bit of money at Lowe's. I bought four simple screw-in feet (which I stained), some nicer-grade plywood for both the top and the bottom, and a few hinges with which to attach the top. I stained the top to match the feet (they're a slightly darker shade than the stain I used on the rest of the trunk), and I had Josh work some magic on the hinges so that they would fit around the back corner. For the bottom, I screwed the large plywood piece into the bottom end of the 2x4s, and then also added a long 1x4 across the middle for extra support.
And there you go! I tried to keep the weight of this thing to a minimum, so I didn't choose to use very heavy material for the bottom of the compartment. This means that we won't really be able to store anything heavy inside of it, but like I mentioned earlier, I think it'll work nicely for pillows and blankets. And maybe the guest room in our new house will just have to end up consisting of colors that compliment red and purple.
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