One Room Challenge Week Five: Wood Bench Makeover

Hello!

It’s week FIVE, friends. Where in the heck has all the time gone? I feel like it was just yesterday that we were talking about the bedroom plans and showing off what we wanted to do with the space.

And now it’s week five and we’re so close to that finish line!

Last week there was an announcement from Linda (the one in charge of this awesome challenge) at Calling it Home and the ORC is being extended one week. Given my minor OCD when it comes to planning and not doing too well with change, I took the news better than expected 😉 And the extension has been a blessing in disguise, so thank you, Linda!

We were going to show off the closet today but given the extension, we’re pushing that back to next week and instead are sharing a quick and easy bench makeover along with the some bits of the cozy reading nook.

First, the bench.

I found this beauty at a garage sale for a whopping $10. Obviously it was just begging me to take it home.

The top had some pretty major water damage and since we have so much wood already in the room, I opted to paint it.

The color is an experiment that I threw together with paint we already had on hand. There was about 1/4 of green paint left over from the kitchen island update so I mixed that together with white primer and ta-da, it turned out! The color matched the green patterned sheets almost perfectly; needless to say I was pretty happy 🙂

I put on three coats of paint and went back and forth on whether or not to distress, antique or leave alone.

Surprisingly, I didn’t want to just leave it. Too boring! And we already had distressed nightstands. No, you can never have too much distressing, but I decided to go with an antiqued look.

For the dark wax I used DecoArt Creme Wax in Deep Brown and buffed it on with this antiquing brush.

I wasn’t in LOVE with it, so I went back over the whole piece with DecoArt Creme Wax in Transparent to soften the brown a bit, which turned out great.

Now, for the cozy seating nook. 

I went back and forth on whether to put the bench in front of the bed or next to the chair. I really liked the mini ladder as the side table next to the chair, but it also looked too bare on the wall without something longer.

Spoiler alert, I swapped out the ladder for the bench and love it!

Since this is guest room, I put together a galvanized tray filled with some necessities [Q-tips, deoderant, bobby pins, hair binders, etc.].

Put out some great reading material [who can say no to Magnolia Magazine?].

And of course, added some more greenery, because you can never have too much, right?!

SO WHAT’S LEFT ON THE LIST?

Install plywood flooring
Paint the walls
Put together the bed
Make/find nigtstands
Make a bookshelf
Install closet shelving and storage
Make the picture ledge
Find/make light fixtures
Find/make wall decor
Put together the seating corner
Make over the wood bench
Install closet doors
Install room door

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