I saw this a long time ago on Pinerest:
Since then, I've been planning on doing something similar in our house. Well, the day finally came for me to go out and find a piece of furniture to create this. So this past Saturday I went thrift store shopping.
I found a few buffet tables, but none of them were very interesting and I would have had to paint them. I decided to keep looking.
Then I came across this:
I sent this picture to Jason, who seemed very doubtful at first. I thought that maybe a visual of what it could be would be helpful for him, so I sent him a little something from Pinterest:
He immediately responded, "If you can make it look like that, get it. That. Looks. AWESOME!" So I bought the pink bench.
After purchasing the bench, I went straight to Home Depot to pick out paint. There was no way on earth that I was going to let that pink obscenity into my house without a coat of paint.
I ended up choosing "Anonymous", although it was a tight race between that and "Dark Granite". After the fact though, I'm really glad I went with the lighter gray.
When I got home, I realized that I couldn't get the bench out of the car by myself. Since Jason wasn't due home from work until after 7:00, I figured that I had a few hours to start working on the frame wall.
As I was working, I realized I needed something from the front porch. No big deal, right? Wrong. I stepped outside onto the porch to get a few 3M Command strips and little did I know, the door locked behind me. Great.
Being the problem solver that I am, I just walked next door and asked to use our neighbor's phone. It dawned on me that the only phone numbers I know by heart are Jason's cell, and my parent's house number that doesn't even exist anymore. I prayed fervently that Jason would pick up the phone, in the middle of work, on a Saturday, for a number he doesn't know. After trying him a few times (and calling long distance from my neighbor's land line...is long distance free these days?) Jason picked up. He said he'd come home early and let me in. Husband to the rescue!
Sunday morning I woke up at 7:30 on my own. Usually I get really mad at myself when that happens, but I was okay with it this time. Since Sunday was Jason's only day off, I let him sleep and I snuck out the garage. I moved the bench onto an old sheet...by myself I might add...hooked up some speakers in the garage, turned on my music, and went to work sanding.
I sanded the whole bench to get all of the random paint chips off. Then I wiped it down with liquid sandpaper and let it set for 30 minutes. After that, I put two coats of paint on it. I used an interior paint with primer in it, so I probably could have stopped after one coat, but a little bit of the pink was still shining through in some places, so I added a second coat.
Jason came outside while I was finishing up the first coat. He said that it was really neat to wake up and walk outside to find me out there. He ask how long I'd been up, and when I told him, he just laughed. I don't think he understands HOW ready I was to be able to do projects like this :)
I finished up the painting and he started organizing the garage, which was a task that I did NOT want to do...so I'm thankful he did it. We let the bench dry in the garage with a fan on it for the rest of the day, and then moved it into the house that night.
And here is the (almost) final product:
I still want to add a few things to the wall and make some more pillows for the bench. But other than that, I'm very pleased with how it all turned out!
