A “New” Bench: Country to Cottage Chic

If I do say so myself!

My mom got this rustic little bench years ago. 

Well, eventually, she got sick of the country look.  Around this same time, I’d been talking about keeping an eye out for a cheap bench I could put on our front porch.

As you can probably guess, putting two and two together makes…..a new bench for my front porch!

I wasn’t wild about the heart cut-outs, and the back of the bench came up several inches higher than our front window.  Solution?  Cut off the entire top portion, leaving only one heart cut-out to cover up.

I found a wooden medallion from Lowe’s and used wood glue to glue it over the heart.

Some yellow paint (to match another piece of décor destined for the porch) and mahogany stain later (wipe on, wipe off!), we have this:

Once it warms up just a bit more, friendly plants in the glaringly bare planters will help the porch will look even more summery and inviting.

A few more details:

• There’s no poly on this guy.  Supposedly, poly isn’t recommended for outdoor furniture.
• I used exterior latex paint in a satin finish.  I learned later that anything less than gloss in exterior paint is “designed to chalk” – so I should have used a gloss sheen instead.  It’s not a huge bench, so it won’t see many (if any) bums sitting on it, but still.

What else is new in the neighborhood? 

Welllllll…….

We bought some (more) mulch last weekend, to be spread this weekend.  What?  More mulch?  Because the first truckful wasn’t enough?  Unfortunately, no.  This time around, our ugly backyard deck beds will be getting a nice, fluffy layer of mulch to replace the totally-ugly-can’t-believe-our-backdoor-neighbors-still-speak-to-us black plastic weed mat that was covering the ground back there!  It is supposed to be BEE-EAUTIFUL this weekend, too, which makes mulch-spreading that much more fun.  (Yep, I’m crazy.)  I’ll *totally* have some narstay before shots to show you, along with the lovely, fluffy monkey-hair after pictures!

WHOOOOOO!!!! MULCH!!!!

Plus, I have one more quick project to brighten the porch (in addition to plants in the planters, which I already mentioned) so stay tuned.  Hopefully, I’ll knock that one out this weekend while Nick helps lay sod at a friend’s house. 

Pregnant gals don’t have to help lay sod

One of these days, maybe I’ll even start to think about baby stuff or start on my new living room curtains with the sewing machine….!  So many projects…so little time