Chalk Painted Bench

It's been a beautiful day here in Wisconsin. The birds are chirping, the sun is shinning, and it's hard to believe summer is almost over. I spent a lot of time outside today in my new "happy place".

I have a little story to tell you. A while back I was inspired by blogger Jill Flory over at Sew a Fine Seam, who took an old chair and painted it with chalk paint. It was absolutely beautiful. What a clever idea, painting what was already there instead of ripping it all to pieces and re-doing all the expensive and labor intensive upholstery. 

I have been on a mission to find a chair ever since. So, one day I saw this wooden two seater bench in the trash heap. I drove by it every day for a week thinking, "I wonder what I could do with that bench?" Finally it dawned on me that this would be a good piece to try Jill's technique on.

Fortunately, no one else had discovered this piece in the trash, and it was still there when I went back. Actually, I sent my two teenage boys to pick it up for me. I love those guys!

So, with a little chalk paint and some muscle, I now have a new happy place on the deck.

The original piece had torn cushions on the seat, so I did pull those apart and recover them with some printed duck fabric from Hobby Lobby. I also fluffed them up by adding some old rather flat, bed pillows and then stapled the new fabric over them. I did not come up with this idea on my own either, brilliant blogger Jennifer Rizzo gave me this inspiration from her post on recovering chair cushions. Occasionally I do have my own ideas, really I do!

To make the burlap pillows, I reused my holiday pillows and covered them with scraps of the blue print and a bit of ribbon. I didn't even sew them, they are tied and pinned in place. 

I love easy projects.

In my travels around town I also happened to find this wooden set of shelves in the trash. I knew right away it would look great as a coffee table, and when I was wildly painting the bench with chalk paint, I gave the shelves a coat of white to match.

Our boys love to play Frisbee Golf in the yard, and in a moment of inspiration, I decided these awkward grooves would make an excellent way to store the Frisbee Discs. I deliberately left the grooves unpainted. You perfectionist types will be annoyed by this. Have I mentioned I am not a perfectionist?

The coffee table is right outside the back door, an easy place to grab the Frisbees on the way out into the yard. We have a very serious game of Frisbee Golf after dinner each night.

And while the boys are sweating up a storm playing Frisbee, I am calmly relaxing, sipping my tea, sketching and brain storming for tomorrows blog post.

I must tell you that this is now the most comfortable seat on the entire deck.

Where is your happy place?