Today is all about a really cute park bench that found its way from the fixer upper, to our home. Anthony and I spend a lot of time in our detached garage/ shop working on projects for the house/ farm and blog, but the thing is, we never really had a place to sit and take a breather. To enjoy life. To wait for paint/ stain/ or glue to dry. And the garage itself doesn’t have room inside (ahem, we have quite the tool collection….), so I took advantage of a sweet little spot right outside the door. 😀

Now, we have a pretty little place to enjoy, laugh, and dream up new projects! Lucky us!

And as for that bench, here’s what it looked like before…

It was rough. The slats were falling off, the wood was coming apart… and a towing strap held it all together…

Good thing it came to our house, huh? 😀

First, I took off the towing strap and removed the staples. Then, Anthony added some side supports to make everything a bit more sturdy…

We also added new supports to the back of the bench as well…

And, ironically enough, the slats did fit the back of the bench pretty good, they just needed attached a bit better! So, we spread some liquid nails onto each slat…

Put them in place, and nailed them on…

Anthony added a few screws to tighten everything up, I sanded down the rough wood, caulked areas that needed it, filled holes, then I started painting…

I used the Maison Blanche outdoor paint in Wrought Iron…

The wood really soaked up the paint, and I was sure I’d need two coats, but one coat covered really well! Just a few small areas needed a second coat.

And once I had it all painted, I added a protective coat of satin varnish to make sure it was really protected from the elements, just like I did with our red outdoor stool.

I added two coats, let them dry, and it was ready to be relocated to its new home! It gets me all excited seeing it there! 😀

In fact, this whole garage area recently got a makeover too, which I can’t wait to share with you soon! 😀

A cozy spot to sit and enjoy our sweet farm makes me pretty grateful…

And that’s my park bench makeover story.  I think it loves its new home as much as we do! 😀

P.S.- Special thanks to Maison Blanche for supplying the paint!