Bench Dilemna

There's this little thing called Junk Jaunt that happens every September out here. And it's dangerous. Aside from the crazy Beverly Hillbillies-esque pickup and trailers and their insane drivers, it's dangerously easy to spend a LOT of money on...well...junk.

I spent one hard-earned dollar on a bench that is just plain ugly. I saw the potential, though, and forked over a dollar (actually, I forked over a twenty and she handed me back $19, because I was silly and didn't break down my $20s beforehand...) and tossed it in the trailer.

The top has about four layers of--something. One of the layers (the bottom on) is cane, the top layer is linoleum. Yeah, linoleum. But I just loved the legs of the bench and thought it would be cute as an end table or padded bench in the Pants' room.I finally got around to ripping off the top couple layers and found cane in horrible shape on the bottom.

It's attached in there pretty good, too, not something I can just rip out, even if I knew if I could add new cane.

So. What do I do? Here are my options:

1) Paint it white and distress it, then add a padded top (after some plywood) and use it as a bench either at the end of Pants' bed or in our small mudroom. I'd probably go with a fun print for Lily's room and brown or something equally easy to hide dirt with for the mudroom.

2) Try to find a new top that matches (?) and paint it to match the rest. If so, where would I find a new top? The bench is so cute and would prefer this option, but I just don't know where I could find a new top. Do they sell those at HD or Lowes? Hmm... Also, if I could find a new top, I could paint it pink or aqua for Pants' room.

I also picked up a *few* other gems, including this medicine cabinet-turned-message center for our mudroom. This one was my first finished project.

It was a white washed wood and not super attractive with ugly, rusted handles and hinges and chipped laminate on the side, and I fixed the laminate, changed out the hinges and knobs, and painted it white, then distressed and stained it. I'll just add some cork board in the sunken parts behind the shutter fronts to be used as a message board. Those hinges and knobs did turn my $5 medicine cabinet into a $20 message center, though. :S

And last but not least (in fact, it cost the most), is the "new" dining room table.

I really went out on a limb on this one and spent $100 on it. It's pretty beat up, but I just love the legs, and I see tons of potential. I had originally planned on stripping the entire thing and restaining it to about the same tone, then adding black mismatched chairs. Then I saw this blog post at Crafty, Scrappy, Happy on her dining room table up-cycle. I loooove the white! What do you think about painting the bottom of my table white (um, hello! Wasn't looking forward to stripping those legs!) and having mismatched white chairs instead of black? My biggest concern is that I have a messy toddler and a husband who works in a blue collar field...will I be scrubbing those table legs constantly?

Party Line Finds

There's an afternoon radio show out here where people call in with their junk really great stuff for sale, and since Lily goes down around 1, I'm always around the radio for it (we don't have TV, so picture us sitting around the radio in the evenings). I'm a bit of a junker at heart, and responded to a call saying she had old doors and screens for sale. Gasp! I've been looking for an old door with character to make into a headboard. Josh, amazingly, was completely on board and said, and I quote, "Get what you want." Yessssss!

Anyway, here are my finds. This is the screen that I went to buy, and I just love it.

 

It's so simple and country. A good cleaning up and a couple coats of polyurethane and she's good to go. It's got some great details like the hinges...I wish I had a box full of these babies!

 

And the handle is even cute.

I had planned on using it as the headboard until my husband saw the barn door I also bought...

Now while the screen is a "she," the door is definitely a "he." He weighs a ton and it built like a brick. I really didn't want a window in the door we would use for a headboard (I have symmetry issues), but Josh loved it so much that I don't think I'll be able to say no.

I just love rusty stuff. :)

And then she had these sitting out for $10 each. I loved that this one had some messed up glaze, and I think it would look cute on the end of the mudroom bench. And yes, that's the blue dresser that I have yet to blog about. I'm waiting on my super cute drawer pulls to come in, then it will be up here for all to see.

While I was in the shop, I decided to take "in progress" pictures of a couple other projects I have going on. This is the bench I built using ana-white.com's Five Board Bench plans. I'm not loving it in black, but I hope with a little distressing I will like it more. I've also been thinking about stenciling something on the front of the bench, but I can't decide what...our last name? "Kick off yer boots!"? "Mudroom"? There will be a rolling crate made from pallet wood under it that I could also stencil something onto...

I also have had these two shutters sitting around since last fall when I rescued them from my brother-in-law's bonfire and I'm just kind of waffling on what to do with them. I've sort of decided to paint them white and use them as photo/art displays either in our dining room or Lily's room, but we'll see what happens. Any suggestions are appreciated. :)

I can't wait to show you the "after" pictures!