2 for 1 Makeover - Creating My Very Own Thinking Place

About 10 yrs ago I inherited a beautiful iron park bench from my father.  At the time it was in great shape but I did nothing to maintain it time passed and it ended up in very bad shape.  The picture below shows a bit of the bench a little over a year ago.

The ironwork was rusted and the wood was so bad I wouldn't allow Mini to even sit on it for prom pictures!  It has been on my to do list for about 3 yrs now and finally this summer Wonder Hubby finally made the time to repair it.  We wanted to make it a little more special than  it originally was so we dug out some pretty special wood.  The wood in the picture below was cedar logged and rough sawn by my Grandfather several years back and was left over after Wonder Hubby built me a beautiful deck table.  What a great way to use the leftovers!

First we disassembled the bench and using a wire brush removed the rust.  I then spray painted the ironwork black.  Then using the old pieces of wood as a templete we cut and planed the cedar into new boards.  What a mess!  Cedar is great to work with because the aroma is wonderful but the dust is so fine it gets everywhere.  Even wearing a mask we were blowing red for a day!  I then stained with natural stain and followed that with 3 coats of Polycrylic.  Now it is beautiful....and as an added bonus every time I look at it I think of my Grandad :)  

When I was ready to place it back in the yard I realized how lonely it looked.  So I added this driftwood piece my father gave me.  After seeing it with the bench I realized it was just too bleached out.  I drug it into the garage and went to work staining.  When I first applied the stain I panicked.  I used a red mahogany thinking it would better match the cedar than a brown...but when it hit the driftwood it was almost black...opps...

 

So like the pig at the bar-b-que I was now committed and had to finish.  It took a whole quart of stain to get an even coat.  I then followed up with 3 coats of Poly.  Once the Polycrylic was on I began to like it much more.

So I asked Wonder Hubby to try it in a dozen different places take it back out and place it by the bench.  It still needed something.  Ahhh...ha....remember my pot makeover?

 Now I have a perfect trio of makeover successes!  I just love how they look together and it is a perfect shady, breezy thinking spot.