Schoolproject: 2nd Life (2008)

This project got nothing to do with the virtual world called 2nd Life.

The finished ARMY fish trunk.

No, this project was about transforming an old undesired piece of furniture and give it a 2nd life as a different kind of furniture. Mixing the old with new materials.

At home we had an old cabinet/ nightstand. To be honest I don't know where it came from. But I was allowed to destroy it.

Front side of the nightstand
(apologies for the mess in the background)

I used Photoshop to place the nightstand from the previous picture
in a new background.
And I made the perspective a bit better.

I wanted to totally transform it. I always have a preference to make things for extra storage so I wanted to remain the cabinet function on the nightstand.

For the perspective view I did the same thing:
Using Photoshop to make the picture look a bit nicer.

After some sketches I knew I wanted to do something with army, camouflage and metal plates. A good option, in my opinion, was to turn the nightstand into a fishing trunk; a cabinet to sit on. This would match the army functionality.

First I had to flip the nightstand on it's side and remove the legs and upper piece in which the drawer lays.
The drawer itself had to be elongated to fit the new sized drawer space.
The mid panel of the door was removed and on the back there was a new plate fixed to it. In the remaining space a net of wires was made.
All other parts used to make everything as a whole again, were made from MDF.

At this picture it's clear what's the old and new materials.

Lateron a cushion was made with camouflage fabric.

The metal plating is fake; it's decorative plastic wallpaper. Meaning you do get the relief part of the original steel version but it's easier to work with, since you can cut it with scissors.

Detail view

As a finishing touch I added furniture nails which looks like studs/ rivets. And I made a "ARMY" plate for the front of the drawer. These letters were sawn from 3mm MDF.

One mistake I made was the painting. I used poster paint for the camouflage, because that was what laid around at school. This never gives a good result. Also I'm not really font of the way the camouflage turned out; the spots are to even; the dark green ones are all nice in the middle, while this would never be in actual camouflage.

A 3D drawing (Rhinoceros 3D) showing the function of the lid and drawers.
For fun I created the trunk in 3 colors.