A French Bench for Charity

I recently picked up a bedroom set from someone who lived 1/2 mile from us. It would've taken 2 trips to get the double bed, dresser and vanity home and I had no problem making 2 trips, but the guy selling was nice enough to load them into his trailer and take it to my house all in one trip! Good karma coming to him!

This bed was really sweet, but if we're to be honest, beds are tough to sell, right? You can't really set them up in a store unless the store is huge and they just don't have the same effect when they are not set up. So a friend said "make it into a bench!". Grand idea...but I don't do power tools (yet). But my father-in-law does and I put him to work with my vision.

Before:

After a lot of screws, glue, paint and distressing:

The cushions are from Target...ideally I would've gotten custom cushions, but since I don't know what the buyer will want, I just got these for staging.

This bench will be at my son's preschool auction. It's such a versatile piece. Garden, sunroom, kids room, kitchen nook...where would you use a piece like this?

~Allison

Petite Coffee Table, Exciting News and my Boston Experience

Hi Folks!!

First things first, the good news. Kirsten, from White Butterfly Furniture, and I recently began sharing a booth at  Carver Junk Company and we are having so much fun! Kirsten's blog was one of the first to inspire me when I started painting 2+ years ago, so I feel lucky that she recently moved to Minnesota. If you are in the are, Carver Junk Co is open the third weekend of each month...so stop by!

Second is a piece I finished several weeks ago, but just hadn't had the time to write about it. A petite coffee table that I picked up at the GW.

Cutie, huh? This one will be at Carver Junk Co. next month!

In other news, this has been a tough week. Back in January, I talked my husband into running the Boston Marathon with his sister for charity. How often does one have the chance to run THE premier marathon with a close family member? He chose Team in Training/Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my aunt. His sister, chose the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as her husband's cousin suffers from CF. He put in the training during the brutal winter we've had. We planned a trip...the 2 of us and his parents to go to Boston in April.

His dad and I met saw them between mile 6-7 and then again at the top of Heartbreak Hill (mile 21) and he was doing great. We hopped in the car, planning to park in DT Boston in time to see him cross the finish. Due to traffic, we were delayed...I got a text that he had finished. He called and said he'd meet us where we were...2 blocks past the finish on Boylston. Wall to wall runners and family lined the streets, buses parked with runner's gear, me on my tip-toes watching for Mickey...when I saw, heard and felt bomb #1 went off.

The rest you've heard on the news. Mickey made it to us, we found his sister and we got out of the city. All ended well for us. For so many others, that was not the case. I felt slightly more at ease today after the suspect had been caught and I can only hope that the City of Boston will start to heal.

Before the Marathon

~Allison

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White Multi-Purpose Dresser

What a lame title for a blog post!

But what else do you call this?

When I showed up to purchase this from a great couple on Craigslist, they told me it was the top half of a dresser like this:

Obviously a different dresser as the one above is white...but you get the idea.

I thought it was pretty cool that someone had salvaged the top of a dresser and added bun feet. They had sprayed it white and it had a lot of dings, so painted a Ben Moore Silver Satin over the entire thing, distressed it and then glazed with Ebony stain.

I am so in love with this piece of barn wood art that I made. I found it painted this color and just added the butterflies!

I feel like this piece could be so many things! A small buffet, a child's dresser, an entry table, a console table...or even a large nightstand. How would you use it?

~Allison