When one door closes, make a bench!

There is a special kind of thrill from building a piece of furniture from scratch. Designing, measuring  marking, cutting, nailing...it's serious business and major fun at the same time! I didn't know this when a dear client approached me about turning an old door that she found into a bench. I was leaning towards declining for fear of disappointing her vision. Thankfully for me she was persistent and open minded.

Before I knew it I was knee deep in something new and slightly terrifying!

{Before}

A little fear can be healthy, as long as it doesn't stop you from trying.

{After}

Because the painted part of the door was so flaky and chippy, I decided to use the unpainted side for the bench, but used the painted side up for the shelf underneath. Lots of sanding smoothed out the splintery edges, and polyurethane semi-gloss filled in and softened some of the divots. 

It was a somewhat simple project. The hardest part was figuring out which part of the door would be the bench, and which part would be the shelf underneath. Since it was such an old door it had some pretty good cracks that we wanted to avoid putting any weight on. Then when we decided on the sturdiest parts of the door to use, we had to figure out where to attach the legs, which was much easier said than done. The legs had pre-designed holes for the screws, and since the door is not a completely flat piece of wood, we needed to find the best flat parts on either end where the legs could be tightly attached. 

We played around with a lot of different options, but I am very pleased with the final product. I can assure my client that we didn't compromise on quality or her vision, and that is a great feeling as a furniture re-finisher.

This piece would not have been possible without 2 amazing sources: my Matt, (who has modestly kept his mad woodworking skills from me all these years, but now I'm on to him!), and an awesome Etsy shop called RusticLiving. Their trade is designing and making furniture legs out of steel. I did a lot of research before deciding on this shop and I would love to use them again! Their prices and quality of work are unbeatable. Check them out here!

Thank you to my dear husband, Matt, and my new friends over at RusticLiving!

I think I could get used to this piece in our bedroom... But, it's waiting out a weekend departure in our garage. To find out what happened to the leftovers from the door, check out this post here.

The next Chelsea's Garage sale is set for 

SATURDAY MAY 4! 

Hope to see you there!

Linking up at Blue Egg Brown Nest!

~Chelsea