Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Bench Pressed - Resolved!

Remember when I talked about re-doing our storage bench in the entryway? Well, after I painted it over the weekend, I decided that it needed a little extra tweaking. Now it's all done and I LOVE it! I'm so happy with it, that I decided to participate in Transformation Thursday over at the Shabby Chic Cottage, and Do it Yourself Day at A Soft Place to Land.



This is what the bench looked like before it got a much needed makeover


Because it had several layers of textured paint, it received a good once over with our new orbital sander. I have to say that Brad and I had a lot of fun playing with our new toy. I'm sorry there aren't any pictures, but we were racing a thunderstorm.

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After sanding, we wiped the bench down really well with damp paper towels. After it dried, I gave it a coat of Krylon white spray primer. This was my first time using Krylon, and I have to say that I really prefer Rust-Oleum.

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Once the primer dried, it was time to open my free quart of Glidden fresh guacamole. This was definitely a lesson in the actual paint color being quite different than what it looked like on my computer screen. I still love the new color, but it turned out to be much lighter, with a more yellow undertone than what I expected. I gave the bench three coats to get really good coverage. I've finally learned to be patient and apply multiple coats. Glidden is probably the nicest quality paint I've ever used on furniture, and I honestly could tell the difference.

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After the paint dried, I liked the bench, but felt like it was still missing something. I mulled it over for a little bit, and remembered how crazy the blog world is over numbers. I decided to jump on that bandwagon, and I'm so glad I did!


I'm crazy over my new bench. I just printed out the numbers, carefully cut them out, and used mod podge to attach them to the bench. After they dried, they got two more coats of mod podge over the top. I was a little worried about the color running, so I tried one on paper first. Yup, the color ran like crazy, but I really wanted numbers. I armed myself with a wet paper towel and went for it anyway. I found that if I carefully wiped around the edge of each number as soon as I applied the mod podge, I could successfully remove any grey streaks from the black ink.


And now for a 360 view of the entryway with the new bench.


Love it!





Thanks to Glidden for the amazing transformation!


Now, go check out all of the other awesome DIY transformation posts!


<3

Hattie

18 comments:

Sara said...

Love the color! It looks so fresh. I'd sit my booty on that!

Mandi Shandi said...

Way to go! The bench looks fantastic and I totally agree with the numbers being just what it needed. REally great makeover!

randee said...

love the story about your house & love your bench!

thanks for stopping by my blog & leaving a comment. the blue is to go with the rest of the room. i've been working on it for awhile now. if you're interested, you can look at last week, too. thanks

blessings -

randee

Tracy said...

Those numbers take that bench from pretty to really fresh and "now". I love it! Great job.

Fawn said...

Beautiful color.... I haven't opened my can of Glidden yet, now I'm curious about the color! Thanks for sharing.

Julia said...

Great work Hattie! I had such a problem with my Glidden paint glopping up though. It much prefer my standby - Valspar.

Christen said...

So fresh and pretty!!

Linds said...

I'm in love with the color too! THanks for sharing! I love DIY DAY!

Amy@TheLemonCottage said...

I love it! The numbers are great!!!
I'm off to open up my free paint now... wonder how close it will be to the computer color....
~Amy

Dawn said...

I love it!!!

Kitty Scraps said...

So much better, it looks great! Wonderful transformation, I especially love the numbers.

Delightful Dwelling said...

What a cute bench. I love the color and the numbers give it a perfect touch.

Ms. Tee said...

Love the numbers and the color - very cute!

Anonymous said...

Turned out just darling! I've had the same problem with mod podge smearing ink, but I experimented and came up with a tip. Before adhering the printed paper, give it a few coats of clear matte pray. It seals in the ink so it wont' smear.

Unknown said...

Love that! Love the color, love the numbering, just love it!

Sandy and Joe/rhubarb reign said...

Wow! Your bench looks great! Yeah, oribital sander -- we just got one this summer and it makes short work of undoing something like textured paint. xo

Megan said...

If you spray your printed paper with a sealer first, it won't run when you decoupage. Or be sneaky like me and print at work on a laser printer and it won't run at all!

Melissa said...

it turned out great!! These are the same numbers I used for some tin pots :)