Decorative Chest

James and I found this awesome basic pine wood decorative chest at Michael's crafts quite awhile ago and decided to stain it and then add a handle to it. Our original plan was to then use it as a card holder at our wedding but since then we've pushed the wedding date back to next year sometime (probably) and are focusing on moving this fall. Therefore the chest will be used to hold ______ (insert anything really lol) until the wedding date.

We bought the chest for $7 (after a 40% off coupon)
The 3" drawer pull was $3.48 from Home Depot
The stain used was Minwax Wood Finish is Jacobean for $4.98 at Home Depot
The finish used was Minwax Fast-Drying Polyurethane- Clear Satin for $6.78 at (you guessed it!) Home Depot

I absolutely love the knots in the wood of this chest!
Before:

How we did it:

The first thing we did was gather the tools needed which were gloves, a screwdriver, a drill, and medium-grit as well as fine-grit sand paper (I used whatever we had on hand). We then removed the hinges from the chest  and drilled pilot holes for the handle later.

 We sanded the entire thing down really well using the medium-grit sandpaper and then again with the fine-grit. 

 We used paint-brushes to apply the stain to the wood in sections so that it wouldn't drip down the sides

  IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you're significant other removes the label sticker BEFORE staining the chest or you'll have an adorable odd colored spot later (which really isn't a big deal since it's on the bottom, but still).

 There were some spots on the chest that literally wouldn't absorb the stain as well as the rest of the wood did... they didn't feel like glue spots or anything so we just applied the stain a little heavier in those spots ( you can see some of them along the bottom edge of the chest (top part of the picture)).

 After 2-3 coats the Jacobean stain was the PERFECT color!!! :) I am SO happy with how it turned out!! So after waiting a week or so (out of laziness and nothing else haha) we finally applied the Polyurethane finish as directed. I think we ended up doing 2 coats of it.

After that was completely dry we put the hinges back on and then put the handle on the front. Finally, we bought a piece of black felt for $0.29 at Michael's crafts and i used a hot-glue gun to secure it to the bottom of the inside of the chest.

 

 The light is hitting the chest weird so it's giving it a yellow-tint... but it's very true to color with the other pictures of it stained.

A quick Before and After look: 

OH MY GOODNESS I am absolutely in love with how this turned out!! :D 

-B