Bench Makeover

My mom recently gave me this old organ bench so we (Mike) would have a place to sit when he put his shoes one.  We decided it would go in the garage.  Then one day I got to thinking about how boring the bench looked and how much extra paint I had left-over from painting our house.  My brain started working and over the course of a weekend, I transformed a dingy old wooden bench to a bright and cheery shoe container, rack, and bench.

This is how the bench looked before.

I think the inside of the bench will be perfect to store my flip flops this summer!  I also am thinking about attaching a shelf under the bench to store Mike's shoes on.

First I sanded the bench to get rid of some of the varnish (it was so old that most of the varnish had already worn off!)

Then I painted it "Burlywood".  My original intent was to paint the bench twice and then go over it with sandpaper to rough it up and give it a worn look.  I realized after one coat of paint that you could still see some of the original wood color through the paint, which was exactly what I wanted, so I only did one coat!

I didn't trust myself to freehand the flip-flop shape, so I used a pair of mine and traced it onto the bench.

This is my final project!

I love how bright and cheery it looks!  It will be perfect for our shoes and it sure brightens up our garage!