Improving on a Good Idea

Last week, my brother and I made an outdoor bench out of an old headboard we found at the ReStore.  It came out great.  Simple, understated, and very yellow.  Were we satisfied? No.  We knew that we could improve upon this idea.  We could make a much better bench out of an old used bed; something with more detail, and more recycled materials.  The solution was simple: incorporate a footboard.

Footboards naturally sit lower than headboards and therefore are perfect to turn into arm rests.  A footboard would also simplify the construction of the project because it would naturally sit level with the headboard at a perfect right angle.  Very little measurement would be needed to ensure that the bench wouldn’t rock.  There would be no way for one leg to be shorter or longer than the rest.  After all, nothing is worse than an unlevel chair (I still have nightmares of my middle school English class desk that tipped to the right every time I rested my elbow).

So, back to the ReStore we went in search of the perfect footboard/headboard combo.  Lo’ and behold! We found it.

Our first step was to measure and evenly cut the footboard in half using a miter saw.  The cut needed to be precise in order to have the bench box sit evenly.  The footboard was then fastened to the headboard using some old decking screws.  All screws were once again countersunk because I take major issue with any showing metal.  Once the frame was constructed it was much easier to measure and build up the bench box.  The bench box was built of 1X3’s and slid nicely into the bottom supports of the footboard.  At this point, it was time to sand and putty.

                                           "Look Ma, I'm puttying!"

Then came our folly.  While at the ReStore we also bought a quart of paint, something that sounded pretty, like Navajo White.  Did we read any more of the label?  Of course not; paint is paint.  Right?  Wrong.  The paint we had selected was oil based instead of latex.

We did not notice a thing until my brother started to clean up after the first coat.  Washing his hands, the water beaded up and refused to penetrate the paint.  It took a half hour of scrubbing (plus the use of some nail polish remover) to get the paint off of him.  The brush was ruined.

After the clean up, the chair refused to dry.  It was super tacky.  Looking into it, oil based paint can require up to 24 hours to cure.  The bench required three coats.  That is three days of my brother’s basement stinking of paint.  That wasn’t the only bad news.  Further research showed that oil based paints can be harmful to the environment as well.  http://www.dnr.mo.gov/pubs/pub2208.pdf We had been going against our modus operandi!  However, we must live and learn. 

In the end, the project still turned out great.  Oil based paint.... impossible to clean, crappy on the environment, beautiful on furniture.