Benchilicious

I always pictured having a small and cute bench in our entry/foyer area. I pictured our little kids sitting on it while we get there snow boots on and have the bottom flip to be able to store their hats and mittens. I searched and searched to try to find exactly what I want, but I couldn't. Everything was either too big, too small or way too expensive.

Then one day while searching on Craigslist, a family in a town only 10 miles away was trying to get rid of a bench that was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I thought...woooohooooo! I messaged her and we met the next day and I paid her the $25 she was asking. I think she would have taken $10 because she wanted to get rid of it so fast.

It was a bench made by her cousin of oak wood and stained to be golden oak. Pretty much matched the main level of our house. Well I didn't want it that color though. I was all about re-finishing it. It also had cat scratches on it so I definitely need to do some sanding to get it looking pretty again.

I had thought that I for sure wanted to just strip this one and re-stain it a very dark walnut color. We had just gotten a new kitchen table and I thought it would look good. Well I starting stripping it..not fun. OMG...I hated it actually. Never again. I then started to try to stain it the dark walnut...hated it. Looked like crap. So on to plan B. Well I didn't have a plan B. So really it was back to the drawing board.

I had left over paint from when we moved in and painted pretty much all the walls. Our entryway/foyer has a deep red wall along with the khaki color walls you see in the above picture. I had decided I would paint the furniture the deep red and distress it.

Well after I had finished painting it...I thought it looked too good to distress..so I had decided to keep it as is.



I loved how it turned out. It looks perfect in our entryway/foyer. I bought the rugs at Target and I think they look perfect also. They really add another pop of color and design to our entryway/foyer.

The bench looks like a brighter red in this picture,

but I promise that it's not brighter than the wall.

 I really want to make a burlap pillow to go on our bench. I found one on pinterest that I really like.

[Via]

This pillow is from a etsy shop, but I actually found a tutorial on pinterest on how to actually make a burlap pillow. I want to make one and put this stencil writing on it but with our last name. How perfect would that be for the bench?!?!