Sorry it took me so long...

I bought a bench on Craig's List on Monday.  I've actually been searching CL since arriving in North Carolina with a bench in mind.  I've found a few great things on there, but no bench.  Until Sunday night, then I found just what I had been looking for.  Of course, I love a good "BEFORE" and "AFTER" picture.  And here, I was so excited to get to the "AFTER" that by the time I took this picture, I had already ripped apart the cushion. 

"BEFORE"

The bench was in great shape, but ever since Liz's thrift store chair re-do (and she added Centsational Girl to our sidebar!) I've known that furniture painting was in my near future...

"AFTER":

The seat cushion is what I was most scared of.  I didn't want it to look homemade.  The original one was a super boring tan corduroy, but I'll hand it over to the old cushion, it was beautifully made.

Lucky for me too, I got to seam rip the whole thing, and use the old pieces as my pattern pieces.  That surely helped my new cushion have such a nice fit, without me having to do any long division or multiplication with fractions!!

It's an old Riley Blake fabric that I had in the stash from Korea.  Have I mentioned I miss Happy Quilt lately?!  Sigh, I really do. 

I sanded the bench down.  Sprayed a can of primer on it.  Then followed up with 3 cans of semi-gloss black Krylon spray paint.  And it required no less than about six, maybe ten phone calls to Liz along the way.  Since she was the expert with her recent chair rescue under her belt. 

The success of it all is certainly not doing anything to help with my Craig's List addiction.  You never know what you might find on there...

Speaking of Craig's List "before" and "after", I've also been working on new throw pillows for my new-to-me couch from Craig's List.


"BEFORE":

"AFTER":

Call me crazy, but I turned it white!  And NO, I did not upholster it myself.  My DIY skills only go so far.  Darin thinks we need to add color to it now.  So he pulled in the old pillows, and now I'm working on some new ones.

Starting with this little bow pillow, copied from Liz's that I've been coveting for quite some time now.

Liz has a bunch of links on her bow pillow post if you want more details.  I showed great restraint by NOT calling Liz ten times while I made this little number.  Although I had my phone in my hand more than once thinking it would be so much easier if someone just told me what to do next, rather than having to think for myself.  But, half the fun of sewing is figuring it out for yourself, right?!

And there you have it, a full report on my North Carolina Craig's List finds.  Can't wait to find my next new-to-me piece of furniture (but Darin can!).