Restoring A Bit Of History

My grandparents gave a big, old, wooden suitcase to me. It sat in my parent's garage for several years, just waiting for me to use it. At one time the suitcase's interior had been recovered in vinyl contact paper.

Turns out several summers worth of heat in the garage warped the contact paper, rendering the case unusable. I rediscovered the case after coming back from New Zealand. (Which might have something to do with buying my weight's worth of fiber and lacking good moth-proof storage) So I decided I would rip out the contact paper and restore the old trunk. I found a site called Shenandoah Antique Restoration, which gave some direction in restoring the trunk.

After stripping the interior to the best of my ability, I taped up the edges of the trunk.

And painted the inside edges white. Three coats later, I was ready for the next step.

I bought white mat board and cut it all to size to line the trunk. Each piece of mat board had to be specially cut for its position. To keep track of each piece, I drew a little guide and labeled each bit of board. I wanted the trunk to still retain the antique feel, so I also glued white muslin to the mat board before gluing each piece in.

It took me a month and a half, but I'm quite pleased with my old trunk. It now is protecting my roving from moths.