Hello June - Bench Refresh

Hello lovelies, I have been on a blogging break for the last month just having some personal downtime.

June is one of my favorite months of the year. It signals the end of the 1^st half of the year, my first nephew was born in June, we got married June, I started my job in June and above all June is the start of summer and bright colors.

One of the first things we ever had built was this wine holder bench. JT had a friend at work who built it and we just had to stain and seal it. Our friend Mo with Mococulture made the pillows and bench cushion. I used the cushion for knee support during one of our projects and that was the end of it.

1st "DIY" Project

We have been without a cushion for a few weeks now and I wanted an easy way to make a new cushion. I came across different tutorials online that used a plywood base, foam, cloth and staple pins. I noticed that the benches at work were made this way too.

It would have been easier if we had plywood that was the right width but we had to patch pieces of wood together to build the base.

12 in pieces of plywood

Added 5 extra inches and staggered them for extra support

All we did was arrange the plywood, spray some adhesive, place the foam on it (we waited about an hour for it to stick) and then we covered it with the fabric and voila, it was done.

Getting ready to Wrap

All wrapped up

Pillows arranged

Pillows re-arranged

Table set

I love how bright it is and how much of a difference the floral print makes.

DIY Farmhouse Dinning Table & Chairs

We have been using a dining table that my friend gave me shortly before she moved out of town for a few years now. I had the dining table in my apartment before we got married and moved into our house. We enhanced the table a little bit by sanding and staining the top and redressing the chairs with green outdoor fabric. I liked it for a while until we had to host Christmas last year and we did not have enough space to fit everyone. Also the metal frame was getting a little shaky so I started “pondering” a solution.

Our dinning table and chairs (Before)

At that time I was a DIY novice so the thought of building a dining table never crossed my mind. A lot of the tables that I liked were in the $1000-$2000 range and there was noooooo way we were going to pay that much for a dining table. After a couple of DIY projects we did around the house I joked about building a dining table and JT said “hey why not, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll toss it aside”. That’s how it started.

I follow a lot of DIY blogs and remembered reading about Ana White’s home building projects. Ana White has a “brag section” on her blog where people post what they did with her plans; I browsed around and started believing we could totally build our own table. We picked one we liked and modified it to fit our dining area and taste.

Wood shopping - we used untreated white wood

The table costs approximately $179 and about 43 hours spread over 3 weeks to complete.  Here is the cost break down

Dining Table
Wood	$ 85
Metal Brackets	$ 40
Spray Paint (4)	$ 20
Dark Walnut Stain	$  8
Polyurethane	$ 11
Kreg Screws	$ 15
Total	$ 179

Tools we used: Circular saw, jig saw, clamps, Kreg jig (for pocket holes), sander, metal brackets, wood glue, Kreg self-tapping screws

Work Table (old table top put to work)

We set the wood in the garage to acclimatize to our house before cutting

The arches (for the pedestals) were the easiest to cut thanks to the jig saw

JT putting the pedestals together (we used a lot of clamps for this project)

Pedestals fitted with base and bottom (caution...heavy)

Pedestals fitted with arches

Lining out table top (make sure both ends are even to attach to end pieces)

We used pocket holes and Kreg self-tapping screws for attachment, glue works but takes years to dry.

We lined out all the pieces to make sure pocket holes were rightly placed

Mario and Mason giving their approval

Metal brackets for additional supports to prevent bowing overtime. We got this idea here

Table top brought in to acclimatize to the humidity of the house (caution...HEAVY!!!!)

Sand sharp edges before staining

We stained to match our window bench / wine holder. Two coats with sanding in between (love the grain and knots)

The most challenging part of putting the table together is passing the stretcher bar through the pedestals. We couldn't have done it without extra muscles from my brother-in-love (JT's twin brother, who is an AWESOME photographer by the way). It took us almost two hours to attach it. The table top weighs more than 60 pounds so you know who wasn't doing the lifting.

BAM!!!! You were not expecting the antic white paint on the pedestals were you?

Table came out exactly how i imagined it would.

View from the bottom

Look at the beautiful details

Our “fancy” new dining table needed “new” chairs so here’s what we did to the chairs we already had. All we used were 1.5 yards of fabric and 3 cans of bronze spray paint.

Old Chairs

Before spray paint

After spray paint

Bronzed-out-million-dollar-looking chair

Dinner for Six!!!!!

We bought the head chairs from a local furniture store to give the dinning area an elegant look. This is by far the most exciting DIY to date. Thanks to JT for being the brawn behind my brains; I come up with these DIY ideas and he helps bring them to life.