70. Do something with my grandfather's WWII foot locker.
I've accomplished another 101 in 1001 list item, and I'm pretty happy with this one. My mother approves, so I'm ready to share.
Years ago, my dad gave me his father's WWII foot locker. I thought it was cool and could be painted and turned into a useful piece of furniture. Of course, like most DIY plans, it had to sit in a closet for a while before I could make up my mind, buy supplies and find time to do the project. That's a good thing, though. Projects I spend more time thinking about tend to turn out better than spontaneous DIYs.
So here's a before for you:
This thing was a mess. It was rusty and gross, and the places where the handles used to be just had little scraps of stringy material hanging out of them. Plus, it's a foot locker, so it's pretty small. The inside was fine, however, and the latches worked.
I ended up landing on gold. It's not perfect, and I used the cheap spray paint without that nice comfortable trigger handle, so it was kind of painful. But I love it! I also added casters to the bottom to make it look more like a piece of furniture. Being able to roll it around, even just to get to the outlet behind it, is really convenient.
You can see it up close in the first photo above (along with my glass of Sprite). Here's how this corner of the room now looks:
This corner has been very bare up until now, so I love that this trunk now looks more like a side table. It's the perfect height to be right next to that chair. Finally, the sad, unused end of my living room looks better.
Now I can finally mark that off the list, and this foot locker isn't taking up space in my closet. Also, I'm not scared of getting tetanus when I touch it now. Success!
