Upcycle an Old Trunk, Part 2: Relining and Old Trunk

This is a trunk I'm making for my Etsy shop
I'm going to be painting it in a faux leather finish. I posted about this eariler in this blog, this post is going into alot more detail, and feature a lot more pictures. I'm starting with relining the tray, but everything here will apply to relining the inside of the trunk too.

Stuff you'll need:
tape measure, large square, pencil, scissors, an iron, and plain craft paper.


 Before starting I removed any loose old paper, this didn't take long as most of it was pretty secure.

First I measured the sides of the tray. I doubled the height dimension as I would be starting on the inside and wrapping the paper around to the outside, then I added an inch and a half to both dimensions so there would be some overlap. I measured out my pieces, making sure they were square, and cut all of them out.

 To texture the paper to make it look like leather I crumpled and uncrumpled it about 6 or 8 times.

 Then I ironed it, being sure not to completely remove all the wrinkles. It made the texture awesome.

Next I poured out a little mod podge on the surface I was papering and spread it around with a brush. This is a lot faster than just painting it on. I also made sure to spread it up the adjacent sides.

 Then I laid on my paper overlapping the other sides just a bit. I had to work fast as the mod podge tends to dry fairly quick. Starting in the middle I gently pressed it down working out any air bubbles as I worked my way to the edges. I used a putty knife to really get it tight into the corners and edges.
 One thing that can not be said enough: YOU REALLY GOTTA KEEP PRESSING THE PAPER DOWN AS IT DRIES OR YOU'LL GET AIR BUBBLES UNDER THE PAPER.

 

I slapped some mod podge on the opposite side and carefully wrapped the paper over it, and again, pressed out all the air bubbles.












Once the sides were done I cut my pieces to fit in and on the bottom of the tray. These were made just a little bit smaller than the actual sizes needed, but big enough to cover the overlaps












Here's a close up of the texture.













On the inside of the trunk I had to work around the rails that hold the tray and the lid bracket. It doesn't look so good now, but once painted it won't be so noticeable.