le Banc (The Bench)

Watching back episodes of HGTV on my iPad is probably not the wisest way for me to unwind, considering it tends to stir up my creativity. As does my latest habit of surfing Pinterst on the web. But I had a tired old bench with a shiny golden leg that had broken off the ancient wooden seat, whose cushion was undoubtedly home to centuries of dust mites. So the transformation began. I had seen some episodes on reclaimed wood, and thought that perhaps some reclaimed wood could be the ticket to rebuilding le Banc (the bench).

At the salvage yard, my mom and I uncovered a piece of wood perfect for this project that only cost one dollar, plus two dollars to have them cut it down to size. Then my dad, visiting from Alaska, picked out some hardware that would make this piece stand the test of time. Being a perfectionist, (wonder where I got it?) he insisted on drilling the holes and filling any visible cracks with epoxy. Then he suggested I sand and bleach the wood to make sure there was no mold present, since salvage yards store piles of lumber outside in the wet world. Of course! Done. Then I antiqued the legs.

Here is the funny thing. I wanted a french script linen fabric to recover the piece, and so my mom and I went to the fabric store to see what we could find. Nothing except a $45/yard chintz fabric with large scale script, saying who knows what. Therefore I decided to make some. The irony is that it ended up costing far more than if I would have purchased the pre-made fabric in the first place. Oh well, I love the bench and I was able to pick the inspirational message that I wanted, translate it into French, choose a font I preferred, order iron-on flocking, wait weeks for it to come, cut text out of said flocking with my Cricut, spend hours weeding out the negative pieces of flock, and then more hours ironing it on to the linen (as I had already assembled the bench, due to my impatience in waiting for the flocking material to ship!) The crazy thing is, I don't regret all the insanity, because the finished product looks like something I would find in the kind of downtown boutique that I love to peruse for inspiration but can never afford to purchase anything to take home. It is a work of art!

The text is taken from Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

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