Summertime porch tour ~ antique headboard bench – new seat DIY

A new seat for our antique headboard bench has been on my to-do list for a very long time, I’m a little embarrassed to say how long… 2 years, maybe even 3 years. Don’t get me wrong we sat on it, I took some extra cushions from our couch and put them on the bench, covered it all with a throw and we used it, we used it a lot. It just wasn’t finished and it was really bugging me!  I asked my blog readers, FB friends, Instagram friends and Twitter followers to vote on my next DIY project, yep, I sure did. Sometimes I don’t mind being told what to do. 😉 If you missed that voting process you can read all about that here… it was very nerve racking on this end at least! A very close race, lets just say that I will be doing some of my future DIY projects at the same time. That should be interesting, but fun! I’m thrilled how everyone voted and chimed in, if that’s you, thanks so very much! (((((Hugs)))))

I bought the headboard bench at a store where we used to live, my plan was to sew a beautiful seat cushion for it… the rough cut pine was a little too dangerous to sit on, if you know what I mean… have you ever had a splinter on your derrière? Not nice! 😉 Mr. Meticulous didn’t love the idea of a cushion and really if I am 100% honest with you I have to tell you that my sewing skills are low to mid level, so I’m not sure what that cushion would have ended up looking like, it may have been more dangerous sitting on it than the rough cut and very lumpy to boot. :p

This bench used to sit proudly in our former home’s dining room, in our new home we don’t really have a traditional dining area. I love this bench and didn’t want to put it in the basement (especially since we won’t be getting to the basement project for a bit) I was vacuuming one day and it hit me, we have a covered porch… I want that bench on the porch! Putting it on the covered porch solved everything… except, I didn’t want a cushion I had to worry about. How do I get it out there and have it be worry free? It’s funny when something is right in front of your face and you don’t see it right away. Years ago Mr M. and I dismantled a very old barn for an elderly couple, the barn was falling down and was made much worse with a very bad ice storm, it was dangerous and they needed our help. Of course this was way before reclaiming barn wood was “in” and we were soooo lucky to pay for all of this stunning barn wood with manual labour. But, man oh man was it hard work! It hit me one day that we should build a new seat for this bench with our barn beams (we had the beams milled years ago ~ so they are perfectly aged), it was like a light went off. No fussy cushion to be worried about, I married a grease monkey and wood is perfect… just wipe it off and sit!

I knew this antique pine would make a perfect seat and be flexible enough for me to maybe one day add a cushion… this is the process we followed to build a seat and two arm rests.

• decide on look (design) we wanted ~ this is where sketching and lots of discussing comes in, we use graph paper mostly, this allows for a scaled sketch. In this phase we figured out that we would use 3 separate pieces, and would screw and glue those pieces down into the rough cut. We would then cover the screw holes with plugs, it’s a rustic look and we both like it.
• process of measuring ~ we use our sketch to get all of the finer measurements that we required, we didn’t get very fussy at this stage as the bench is rustic and not meant to be perfect
• pick the perfect pieces of wood ~we had a rough idea of the linear feet we would need and picked 3 pieces that would meet our needs.
• make cardboard template from measurements ~ this is Mr. Meticulous forte, so he did his thing, and we used the templates to cut the pieces perfectly with the big mitre saw and a bit with the jig saw for the notch outs.
• after the pieces were cut as per the templates, we dry fit everything to double check all measurement weren’t wonky. Perfect-o!
• sanding time, sand some more and keep sanding until everything is smooth as silk. The boards were very rough, we actually planed them first, it cuts down on sanding time a bit.
• staining time ~ we used Minwax stain, colour- special walnut… applied as per instructions. We decided to finish the stained wood with an antiquing oil again going with a Minwax  product. This product is in my humble opinion, awesome. I’ve used it on raw sanded wood and stained wood and it always delivers the hand rubbed look that I like. Minwax, antique protective oil finish. Again, just followed the instructions.

Are you bored with the process stuff yet? Lets see some pretty porch pictures! Firstly, tada here is the finished bench. Sitting pretty on the porch.

I love the way it turned out… and like I said above, I can still add a cushion one day, if my sewing skills improve! 😉

My Mom is coming for a visit this summer… I can’t wait! This will be her first visit to our new home, this is Mom’s corner! With a grand view of the whole property! <3 It will be her first trip without my Dad, I think she’s a little nervous, I want her to feel spoiled when she’s here. Would you like sitting here?

I can imagine that there will be lots of laughs and memories created here.

Waiting on some flowers to bloom…

I hope you’ve enjoyed the little tour of our summer porch…thank-you once again for voting, it kicked me into gear to make our porch welcoming. We are excited to create some lovely summertime memories here.