DIY Distressed Bench

     Alas! I've finally accomplished something creative! The juices generally stop flowing when Pinterest is closed down for the day and I'm exhausted because I have so many ideas but not enough tools to complete the tasks. I often wonder how such a crafty site can produce so few results among its users.

     My favourite thing to find on Pinterest is furniture, especially vintage-looking pieces with distressed edges and beautiful lines. However, I have not been able to find any such furniture that doesn't cost upwards of one hundred buckaroos which still has to be sanded and refinished. 

     But lo! My husband happened to have a bench sitting in our shop--a leftover project from Kids Club--that he wasn't using. Pretty plain. Kind of boring. I figured it was the perfect thing to start on!

 This is what the bench originally looked like.

I started sanding it down, using whatever sandpaper I could find.   --->








You can see below that my hand sanding wasn't quite getting rid of the black writing.

So my husband took the belt sander to the top and sides to get a smoother finish.   --->








Below: A better finish

 I printed off some numbers onto regular paper, trying to make them as big as I could. I also varied the size of the numbers because I wanted a little variety.   --->






Below: I wrote over the numbers, pressing fairly hard to leave an indent in the wood. My printing job on some of the letters was a bit off so I had to improvise.

 Drawing over the indentation marks.    --->









Below: Painting! I used a black acrylic paint and whatever paint brush I could find.

 Time for a cookie break. You will notice that it is sitting on the number 0. The font I had found on the internet didn't print a zero, so again, I had to improvise. It looked better after a couple tries. --->






Below: I forgot to take a picture of my 'aging' process. Basically, I mixed apple cider vinegar and some regular vinegar with a few tea bags and a piece of steel wool. I let it sit for a while before rubbing it onto the wood.

 If you let the vinegar solution sit over night, it will become a black sludgy mess. I still used it to do a few other coats. Make sure to wipe off the disintegrating pieces of steel wool with a clean cloth.

This was the final colour.   --->











Below: I did want more of a distressed finish so I sanded the edges and the numbers.

You can see that I was a bit careless and didn't cover all of the inside with the vinegar solution. However, I liked the way it looked so I left it alone.  --->






Below: And finally, I completed the bench with a satin clear finish.

 

And VOILA! The final product, sitting in my front entryway.