Bench Love

I mentioned in a previous post how much I love benches. I've got several. They're different but share one similarity: each started its life as a coffee table. True story.

The first bench is in our living room. That's my baby girl Gracie working on her geography in homeschool.

I love that detail in the middle of the table. All I did here was paint the legs black.

 

 

There are two coffee table-turned benches in the dining room.  The one at the table was originally wood that I painted black and had hubby add wheels to.

 

I painted the bench years ago, before I knew about priming wood before painting. A newbie error that I've never got around to correcting. We had a friend over for dinner once who thought that I'd painted the bench then sanded a portion off to give it that weathered look. Yeah, let's go with that.

 



 

This table turned bench will be our focus today. It was also wood painted black, but with flat paint instead of semi-gloss as that's all I had at the time. It's home to a pillow and cat bed, both of which are in abundance at Casa Nichols.

 

 

 

I got a wild hair tonight and decided to cover it with the wall hanging that lost its home after the entry-way makeover. The colors work in the room and it's nearly the perfect size.



Thanks for your help, Simon.

I plan to finish it off with batting and upholstery tacks. A quick tip: if you need upholstery tacks and your funds are low, skip the fabric store. I got these at Lowe's for around $2 a pack and each pack contains 25 tacks. Various finishes and styles are available. I chose an antiqued finish.

 

This bench re-do is part of a larger project: I also plan to re-upholster the head chairs at the dining room table. I'll post pictures when I'm done with the entire project. Thanks for reading!



Frugal Friday- Wall Hanging

I love wall-hangings. They're a great way to add color to a room, to centralize the room's focus or the blend the varying hues used in decorating. There's something so French Country/Meditteranean about them, and perhaps because these are the two decorating styles I enjoy most, it just speaks to me. Isn't this stunning?



http://www.tapestrytapestries.com/

Hmmmm, at a cost of nearly 200 beans (and thats without the rod, finials and tassels), I think I'll pass.....

Another beauty. But even the sale price of $160 (again, that's for the tapestry alone) is more than I'd like to pay....

I was certain my friends at Kirkland's would have a tapestry that wouldn't break the bank, but I didn't see one on their website. Their closest store is a city away and I didn't feel like making that drive. Besides, by that time, I was kinda thinking I could make one myself....

http://www.googleimages.com/

 I was thrift-store shopping sometime later and came across a reversable cloth wall hanging. (Has that ever happened to you?  You're looking for something and it shows up..:) She was a beaut. Price? $3.99. One of the two tabs for the rod was missing, but I wasn't put-off at all by that. I brought a $5.00 rod from Big Lots, a package of cafe curtain rings from Wal-Mart, and threw her on the wall that leads to the second floor.  Here's how she looks when you step through the front door.

The view from the top of the stairs....

The sign over the hanging displays Homer's assertion: "The journey is its own reward". 

Read more about that here

A close-up of the rod and rings:

Cost breakdown:

Wall-hanging    $ 4.00

Rod                    5.00

Clips  (approx)    3.50

          Total:      $12.50