Our little piece of the outdoors

Ah, the power of YouTube.

It can share your home videos.
It can make you laugh.
It can get songs stuck in your head.
It even makes Owen dance.
And, it can teach you how to build a bench.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Brendon and I decided it was time to make the bench for our patio. {that we've been talking about for quite a while} Several things had stopped us from working on this project... we didn't have the right tools, not enough space to work,  too cold, too hot, too much else to do... all the usual things that get in the way of progress.  With our 3 day weekend (and knowing that after this weekend, B would be gone for 5 weeks), we decided to get to work!

I was in charge of coming up with plans for making our bench.  So, I turned to YouTube!  I found a recap of an old HomeTime episode that was exactly what we wanted.  It's a 2 minutes video... how hard could this be?  Let's get started...

We went to Home Depot to buy all the wood for the project.  Dexter, our new friend in the lumber section, cut all the wood into smaller pieces for us.  This was so convenient and necessary. {There's no way a 14 feet board was going to make it into the SUV} I didn't have my drawings with me, so I just had to work from my memory.... Good thing I watched that video at least 10 times!

Owen was very happy to tour the store while the wood was being cut into pieces. We were very proud of his patience and that all the wood for the bench only cost us $62!

Once all the cuts were made, we loaded the car and drove home.  As timing would work out, it was Owen's nap time---so Brendon and I got right to work!

Brendon did take a few minutes to admire his new miter saw.

 As miter saws go, it's very pretty.

We took much longer than the 2 minute tutorial to make our bench. The project wasn't difficult. There were just a few things that slowed us down, but we learned together along the way.

The bench is beautiful! We placed our new little plants on top.

As I was taking pictures of the bench, I realized our old IKEA chair was looking RoUgH!!!!! It is actually very sturdy and comfy, but man does it look bad. 

I made a cute chevron cushion to go over those gnarly seat slats.  It's made from gray duck cloth. I used my handy dandy Silhouette to cut out the chevron design on freezer paper. Ironed it down to the fabric and painted the yellow lines.  I was shocked that it took an entire bottle of paint to cover the light gray fabric. 

Sewing the cushion took me no time at all.  I actually think it took longer for the paint to dry.  I love the colors.  I found the outdoor rug at World Market for $14. It's really made it nice for sitting outside.  Owen loves to crawl around out there, so now he has a softer surface to play on. 

We're loving our newly redecorated little piece of the outdoors.  And, you can see our plants are doing very well.  They've grown so much in just a week!