A Very Special Chest....

For most people, the Christmas season always brings lots of traveling. My traveling started this weekend when Justin and I headed down to Tifton, GA for a Christmas gathering with his Granddad's side of the family. It was great to see everyone and meet people I've heard about through stories. It is always a great time to spend time with Justin's family. They never fail to make me laugh! :) As I continue to meet Justin's friends and family the more similarities I am able to identify between his family and mine. :)

Although our main reason for traveling to Tifton was for family, our trip came with two intentions. The second reason for our travels was so Justin could deliver a beautiful cedar blanket chest he built for two of his friends from college.

In October of 2005, two of his good friends from the forestry school lost their home and everything in it in a fire. They were renting an old farmhouse from a professor, and faulting wiring consumed everything they had - most tragically, their two dogs were unable to find their way out. Even their cars, which were parked near the house, were destroyed. The outpouring of support from the forestry school got them back on their feet in no time, but of course there are some things that can never be replaced. One of those things was an old cedar chest that had been in one of the girls' family since the 1800s. Curiously, there happened to be an old cedar tree growing beside the house that was killed by the fire. Justin was able to get his hands on a small 8' log from that tree several months after the fire.

 He had the log sawed into lumber with the intention of making something for his friends. Over the last couple of years, him and his friends finished school and went their separate ways. One of them married another good friend of his from the forestry school. Last year, he called Justin up with a proposition: he wanted him to build a cedar chest to replace the one that burnt in the fire. He didn't even know Justin had lumber from the house fire. (How cool!)This was the push Justin needed to use that lumber to build something beautiful for one of his friends.

Although Justin was given a push, he was not given a very specific date, so he put it off until the last minute. A couple weeks ago Justin recieved another phone call from his friend asking if the chest could be ready by Christmas. Justin agreed, even though he knew it would require many late nights in the shop.

As we know, Justin was scheduled to deliver the chest on Saturday morning. At this point Justin had the body of the chest built, but still had a ways to go...at 8 pm on Friday night.

Once he installed the molding he moved on to oiling the chest before he put the first coat of blonde shellac. 10pm.

This chest required three coats of shellac. Each coat takes an hour to dry, and has to dry before the next coat can be applied. Justin finished up around 1am. That gave him just about 5 hours of sleep before having to get up and make finishing touches.

TA-DA! The finished chest! You can't even tell there is a hidden drawer in the front, can you!?

Justin's friend only had one request, a secret drawer. Justin said that puzzling out and building this drawer almost doubled the amount of time to build the chest. Dovetails still work even if they're not perfect, but everything had to be just right for this drawer to work properly.

Another view of the chest and the drawer.

 Another secret compartment! :)  The side of the till slides up to reveal it. This is where Justin hopes the owners will store the note he wrote to go along with the chest. It explains where all of the wood came from, how long it took, the maker, and who it was made for.

On the way down to Tifton I asked Justin if we could just keep it and tell his friend that his fiance' just couldn't let it go! :) Justin replied, "this will probably be the hardest thing I'll ever have to give away until I have a daughter."