My FIRST finished furniture project!!!

Okay, first things first, Hubby is out of town on a business trip. Left early Tuesday morning. (So, if you're Hubby, stop reading now. This is your surprise!)

I wanted to check out the Habitat for Humanity store I've heard about in blogland (click here if you'd like to find one near you), so Tuesday morning I headed over with the idea of looking for light fixtures for our house (that we're buying in a month). I had no idea I'd find furniture there too. I promised Hubby a couple of weeks ago I'd stop buying furniture off Craigslist - and I've kept my promise. (I'd bought 3 large pieces of furniture, all for a great price, for our soon to be house that we don't really have the room for yet - in about a week's time.) I found a gorgeous armoire, exactly the kind I like and - what do ya know - the PERFECT size for the ginormous TV some friends were getting rid of at Christmas and we inherited. Oh, and it's solid wood and less than $100. I walked away from it, saying, "I promised Hubby no more furniture." (Believe it or not, I did!)

I saw this ugly, but sturdy piano bench not too far away from the armoire and decided that since I was being good and not getting a big piece of furniture I could get this. We've been looking for a bench to use with our dining room table since we now have 3 kids and only four chairs between the 5 of us. It was the exact height and length I've been looking for. And it was only $40. I've seen a lot of tutorials on recovering benches and chairs, so I thought I'd have a go.
So, after dinner that evening the boys and I headed out to Joann's and Ace Hardware to find everything I needed to redo this diamond in the rough.

I started last night and worked on it a little bit at a time through out the day, as kids and time permitted. Just finished it and I'm so proud of myself. I've never done anything like this and I can hardly believe it looks so good!So, what'd ya think? I love it! I'm hoping to talk Hubby into letting me refinish our entire dining room set to match, along with my ugly buffet I got off Craigslist. I covered the fabric in clear vinyl since we'll have toddlers sitting on it to eat. One day (in the not too distant future, I hope) we'll get a bigger dining room table and a piano, so this bench will be used as a piano bench someday.


I'm linking to Kimba's DIY Day, so go check out some other great projects!