I dug a piece of 1 x 10 out of the old chicken coop for a project, not really sure what project. As I attempted to remove some of the peeling paint off one side, I discovered something interesting.
Beneath the really heavy layer of yellow paint was another layer of red, which I can only surmise was either primer or stain. Once I got the stain off, I discovered that this old board was actually something more like hardwood than the pine I was expecting. The center was a light color and the outer edges look like walnut or some other brown colored wood. I could guess that the boards might be cherry or maybe even some sort of nut.
I had quite a time with the paint heat gun and an a spatula, finally drug out Dad’s old Sears belt sander, hooked up the vacuum and went to town. By the time I got that side stripped, I was pretty sure that this board needed a special project. I coated the wood with linseed oil, let it set and proceeded to apply several coats of clear water based varathane.
In the back of my mind, I was deciding to make a trash can for the living room, something you use most days and a regular furniture piece for the room. I did not want to cut any of the beautiful brown wood off the edges. My thought was to add vertical strips on each corner and cut dados and wood strips to join the corners. The board was long enough to make 12 inch sides and use the remaining piece for the bottom.
The size kind of got away from me, and my beloved thinks it is too massive for a trash can. In the spirit of usefulness, she suggested we might use it to hold a plant. I think that might be just grand.
Here are a couple shots of the finished product:
     
I really like the contrast between the brown and light. The background on the second shot was messy, so I had a little gimp cleanup to do.
Originally I was just going to leave the old yellow paint on the inside,
but I could not stand to hide that beautiful wood.
Here is a shot nearly finished on the workbench:
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