My wife's friend wanted a version of a chest my wife bought while ago. The 1st pic is the original. The 2nd is the one I made. I added molding at the base, and a lip on the lid. The joinery is pinned rabbets. Rabbeting the front and back panels only means you can run a 1/2" dado along full length of the insides of each of the 4 panels for the bottom; there is no need to do a stopped dado like in 'stronger' joints.
It's poplar.
The antique barn finish is a twist on an article on PWW I read. The base is flat black alkyd enamel, then shellac, then red gloss alkyd enamel, then abuse (I used a heat gun, sandpaper, the corner of a scraper, and my 6-yr old's artistic license for that). Then I sanded the glossy red with 400grit, and rubbed it with a brown pigment stain as a glaze. That really muted the color and made it look old. The article said to use latex paint and separate the coats with brushing lacquer, but the alkyd sands better IMHO, and shellac dries quicker. It also bubbles nicely when heated.
Finally I sprayed it with a can or 2 of Deft Finish Satin (guilty pleasure, that stuff is).
I got the hardware from Vandyke's. The screws were all too long for the 3/4" sides, so I clipped them all with wire cutters. I sprayed them with the Deft too, since the iron oxide rubbed off easy.
Last, I had a hard time finding lid stays that mounted against the sides of the 'tray' lid; they're all designed for plank lids. I had to make a batten on the inside of the lid to provide a proper mounting sfc. It worked out fine.
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I could store a lot of hand tools in a chest like that.
