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