Couch-Back Bench

When my mom and I recovered this couch (err, mainly mom) I didn't have her bother with the back. I intended to have it up against a wall.

At Christmastime I rearranged the furniture to fit the tree, and my husband announced that he preferred the couches rearranged like this permanently (although he initially chose the placement of the couches). All that to say, my mess of a back of a couch was exposed.

I did paint the peach-pink-floral mess, to try to clam down it's obnoxiousness. But this was as good as that looked:

We were often sitting on the back of the couch too - it just seemed to need seating here. I had a trunk there for a while. But when I moved that it was just bare and strange.

So one day I was fed up with it and I drew out a nice design for a solution. And after staring at it I thought "that will take me a lot of work, and it's so miserably hot outside, I'm going to have two exhausting days building this bench - by the time I drag the three kids through Home Depot and get all the boards cut and then paint them all and then screw everything together... it sounds awful."

I threw the perfect plan into the trash and went for the shortcut. I went to the garage to see what was available. I had a board that was ALMOST long enough. But I had no legs. Then I spotted two tree stumps that had been used to lift the lawnmower while fixing it. I rummaged through the firewood and found another similar sized log. Since they weren't perfectly straight I couldn't have the logs all the way under the board, but I didn't really care. I screwed it in, slapped some deck paint on top, and had my bench. The next day I went and bought a $10 board to attach to the back of the couch, and I used some leftover brats too, and that helped the couch and bench happily team up to give me function - and a better visual too. Here is the end result.

And some detail shots for the fun of it

 

 

And the lentil sprouts I was snacking on while making the bench (I rarely make sprouts, so I feel like it merits bragging rights if I did eat some!)

and some black-eye-pea sprouts too. My sprout mentor informed me that a black-eyed-pea is about as large of a sprout as is tasty to make. Smaller dried things tend to make better tasting sprouts. Like grains, for example. Anyway, here is the other bowl.

And those were the unique aspects of my Tuesday. I've got some housekeeping to catch up on now!