The Next Best Thing

When I was looking for chairs for our Living Room I considered these ones from Z gallerie

I love bobbin chairs - not the price though (these are $600 a piece, Ouch).
I can't logically pay more for one chair than I just paid for my new couch.

So I lost hope in having a bobbin chair.   Oh well.

Then I found the next best thing.  While I've been redoing the Living room these last few weeks, I noticed the open area by the window behind my couch could use some sort of bench.  So I started the hunt with my local classifieds- KSL-
(I have had such great luck there lately!).

I think I heard angels singing when I saw this:

Looks kinda like a bobbin bench, right!  And for $90!!!

Someone was brilliant enough to make a bench out of an old wood spindle twin bed frame.

Lucky for my - someone was crazy enough to get rid of it!!!

The wood was beautiful "as is" and in the right room I would have kept it, 

but it needed a coat of white paint to work with my living room decor.

The cushion also needed an update.  First off, it needed to be thicker.
I got a large piece of 3" foam from Home Depot for $20 (a great deal) and cut it to size,
then set it on top of the cushions the bench already came with.

I love my french stripe wing chair (by the fireplace below) and decided I would like the same fabric on the bench cushion.  

While looking online at some fabric options I came across a few blogs where people had painted stripes on fabric for the same "French stripe" look.  I figured "why not?"  

I recently had success painting fabric curtains for my sons room so figured I'd give this a shot.  I'm so glad I did!

I already had some neutral fabric on hand that was the right shade and size, so after taping off my lines I lightly painted the fabric and within an hour I had my fabric- no money spent!

The next step was sewing a box cushion - I normally leave this kind of stuff to the professionals, 

but I DID IT!!!!!  This was my first time doing something like this.  It really wasn't too hard and I'm so proud of how good it turned out!  My husband was shocked too!

~Just a couple small details and this room will be done~

By the way - for the paint I mixed white paint I had already on hand with some Plaster of Paris to make homemade "chalk paint".  Why? I'm lazy and love that chalk paint takes out the steps of sanding and priming.  Here's the recipe I followed.  It seemed to work well - I do have to say Annie Sloan's is better though.  Mixing your own chalk paint does allow you to get the exact color you want and is a lot cheaper, so it's a great option too.