What Hayley said, but then upholster the top so you can use it for seating. Even a foam pad, cut to size and covered, would work. You could run straps with velcro fasteners underneath to hold it in place.

oooo great ideas!

Depending on what color you're looking for you could do what I did recently to a lingerie chest. It started out white and I painted it espresso brown. We were purchasing a new mahogany bedroom suite and were thinking about leaving this piece in the room. I had some dark mahogany stain/polyurethane and I took a foam brush and put this on over the paint. I purposefully worked with a light coat of stain and continued brushing so that the end result looked like a dark mahogany with a grain. Then changed out the shiny brass batwing pulls for something more updated in a brushed nickel (to match the other pieces). You have to be right next to it now to see that it isn't part of the set.

ohhh neat! would you be able to attach a picture of it??

Just happened to have some on my phone. The first picture is the new furniture. The second is of the chest I did the grained finish on. They are phone pictures so the quality is not that great.

I inherited a cedar chest from my great-aunt and it looked similar to the one you have. I added feet to it, then sanded it and painted it Chinese red. It painted up just fine and I like it better than the wood. Normally, I don't like to paint over a stained piece, but in this case refinishing the stain wouldn't give me the look I wanted. Try a nice semi-gloss, and either remove the hardware beforehand, or tape over it with painter's tape.

I would shine up the brasss fittings and leave as is, or you could whitewash it.
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hmm interesting. Thanks for all the advice! @Maureen is that chest in the photo white-washed?