Category: Furniture

Furniture

New Bench Seat

Jessica Smith

My mom and step-dad have been making some changes in their house, one of which was painting the entire kitchen and living room area to an “agreeable gray.” Seriously, I think that was the name of the color. In their mudroom they have a small bench used for storage and an easy spot to put on your shoes. When the first floor was a warmer brown color, the maroon bench seat cover looked nice in their room. But it did not agree with the agreeable gray.

Old Seat

Mom asked if I would mind recovering their bench seat for them. Of course I wouldn’t mind! Silly question. I went to JoAnn’s to pick out new fabric, and ended up with a gray fabric with white dots all over it. Super cute.

To recover the seat, I simply removed the old cover and used a staple gun to add the new fabric.

Check out the difference:

New SeatNow that looks agreeable!

Furniture

Refreshed Grain Bin

Jessica Smith

I bought an old grain bin this spring that’s been moved from wall to wall until it found its home in my dining room. It’s lived in the dining room for months now, in its grungy, dirty state until I got tired of the grime and fixed it up this weekend.

You can see in this photo below the grain bin in its original state on the day I brought it home. It had a white knob and was all scratched up.

IMG_0876

I took off the white knob, which was only drilled partially into the front of the grain bin. It was a pain in the bttt to remove, but I needed to do that before I could clean around it — it was oddly grimy. Yuck.

Grain Bin_Old

I took a few more photos of the piece before getting started on the refinishing. Here’s the beat up top — probably the worst part of the grain bin.

Grain Bin_Old_Top

The front panel of the top of the bin was super scratched, too.

Grain Bin_Old_Front

Since the wood was in super rough face and didn’t look like it ever had much of a stain on it, I was doubtful that my go-to Restor-A-Finish would work. But lo and behold, this might be the best use of the refinishing product yet. To use Restor-A-Finish, simply dab it on a paper towel and rub it on your piece. Let is sit for 20 minutes, then wipe any excess off.

The grain bin was thirstyyyyy, so there wasn’t too much of the finish to wipe off.

Notice any of the scratches or discoloration before?

Grain Bin_Refinished

Nope! Buh bye scratches!

Grain Bin_Refinished_Side

And hello beautiful, shiny top. I mean, seriously, can you believe the difference?

Grain Bin_Refinished_Top

All I needed to do at this point was add a knob back on the front. I grabbed my drill to make a hole through the front panel, then attached an antique0looking crystal knob.

Grain Bin_Refinished_Knob

So charming. Check out the whole thing:

Grain Bin_Refinished_Whole Project1

I bought the grain bin on a whim — basically I just had to buy something at the Barn Sale I went to back in April. Now that it is freshened up, I love this impulse buy and think it totally belongs. It acts as such a nice mini-buffet in the dining room. We usually have our fruit bowl here, but my three apples looked sad and lonely.

Grain Bin_Refinished_Whole Project

Did I mention we store all of our outdoor equipment in it? Volleyballs, badminton racquets…. all sorts of fun stuff. What… don’t you store that sorta thing in your dining room?

Furniture

Recovering kitchen chairs

Jessica Smith

A few weekends ago my mother-in-law and I went fabric shopping so we could recover her kitchen chairs. The fabric was stained here and there, and just needed to be freshened up.

Robin's Old Chair

Robin unscrewed the seats, so we grabbed a cushion and went to pick out fabric. She picked a patterned upholstery fabric in a light bluish, greenish gray.

Robin's New Fabric

We got together this weekend to finish the chairs and were able to knock out the set in about an hour. I’ve done a few posts on how to recover chairs, so I won’t go into too much detail. Plus, I didn’t take pictures during since I was too busy hanging out with my awesome mother-in-law. She only almost stapled me once… and it was hilarious.

Here’s one of the finished chairs — it looks so fresh. In person, the fabric is definitely more blue and less neutral. The iphone let me down with color here.

Robin's Finished Chair

And here’s my adorable mother-in-law showing off her new chair and our hard work!

Robin's Finished Chairs

It was so much fun! Recovering a dining set is such an easy, quick and affordable way to make a change in your furniture.