Map chest

As part of my bedroom makeover, I decided to give this little chest of drawers a makeover, with a bit more of a vintage look.

Here's what it looked like originally, a very plain Ikea Moppe chest:

And more recently, with patterned papers applied to the fronts of the drawers:

I wanted a darker wood look to go with some of the other items I was putting in the bedroom, so I decided to first of all stain the outside of it with the same dark wood stain I used for my Japanese drawers. I then used some beeswax polish on it.

I didn't feel that pink and green were colours I would be using much of in the bedroom, so I thought about what paper I could use instead. The great thing is that the drawers have finger holes at the back too, so I was able to turn them around in case I ever wanted to go back to the pink and green.

I decided that map paper would fit the vintage look I was going for, but I wasn't sure I had any left from a map of the world I'd used for various other projects. Luckily I found that I did still have some, and it was just enough, although I did have to create joins in the paper on the two wider drawers.

I cut the paper to shape, and mod podged it in place. When it had dried I sanded around the edges slightly.

The finishing touch was to add label holders that I'd salvaged from an old piece of furniture that was being thrown out at work. I taped these in place so I could drill the holes in the right places.

I cut up an old envelope to create the labels, and stamped them with numbers.