I’ve been in organizing, rearranging mode lately and a few weeks ago I was telling the hubs that I wanted to get a bench for our front entryway.  Until now, it’s been just a place where you kick your shoes, race hotwheels around and thow the pug’s leash.  But I wanted a place to sit and put on your shoes, and perhaps hide said mountain of shoes a little. 

So I browsed around Craigslist, but didn’t really find anything I liked.  Two days (trash day) I was driving down my street and my neighbors were tossing this baby.  I reversed, drove past again to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me — after all, who would throw away a perfectly good bench?  Never mind the fact that it was covered in cobwebs, stained, warped and U-G-L-Y.  But I had the vision, so I hopped out, loaded it up in the van and went on my way. 

Here she is before.  Nasty, huh?  Never fear — she got the makeover she  deserved.

{1} Sand, sand, sand.  Power sanders are your friend.  Don’t have one?  Well then congrats on all the calories you’ll burn sanding.

{2} Prime.  I always use KILZ.  And it’s almost always the spray.  It’s the best and the easiest to use… but this time I didn’t have any, so I used the bucket.

{3} Paint.  A few coats of Rustoleum’s Semi-Gloss black spray paint.

{4} Sand again.  After painting, I decided to rough her up a little (looks like she’d been through a lot, thought I’d keep it real).

{5} I considered finishing here, but I’ve been seeing cute number projects all over the place, so I thought I’d try here, nothing to lose if it didn’t turn out how I wanted.

{6} To do my numbers, I printed out my numbers and eyeballed where I wanted it on my bench.  The font I used is called Greer, and I got it from these guys. 

{7} Then to transfer it to my bench, I colored the back of each number with yellow sidewalk chalk.  Then I turned it over, lined it up on my bench and outlined the numbers using a sharp mechanical pencil.  The chalk transferred the numbers and I knew I could just wipe it off when I was done.  I filled in my outline with craft paint that I had laying around and a small brush. 

{8} Then I let it dry for a bit — probably not long enough, because I’m impatient — and then sprayed a quick polyurethane top coat.  Perhaps not totally necessary, but I figured it was in a high-traffic area, so it couldn’t hurt.

And here she is, all done — Whatcha think?

By the way, when I was telling this to my friend – she was appalled.  “I’m all for your projects Lan, but this is yuck, even for you!” Ha!  Could not believe that anyone in this world would just take someone else’s trash… who’s laughing now?  (She has since retracted her scorn.)

And I’m linking up I’m linking here, here, here, here  here and here.