The Gossip Bench

A few weeks ago, I was playing around on Craigslist when I came across A Find. A Gossip Bench!

I had just seen a remake of something like it a few weeks ago on one of my favorite blogs, Maple & Magnolia. Check it out here.

A Gossip Bench is a place where housewives of the 1950s could sit and chat on the phone. There's usually a little table on the bench, and a place to keep phone books. I loved the concept and history of the piece. I'd been looking for something like a small table to place near the kitchen door. The boys LOVE to put junk (back packs, briefcases, artwork, computer parts) all over my kitchen table. I thought that this would give them something to throw all of that on, and it would also add some fun to my kitchen.

So here's how it started:

I called the number on the listing and was informed it was at a Flea Market in Moulton. (For you local peeps, that's Gillespie's Flea Market in Moulton. You can find it on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gillespies-Flea-Market/306535265907).

I grabbed a friend and we headed out there. We found some pretty cool stuff! I got a really great trio of candlesticks and a pretty curly mirror.

Pretty cool, huh? Well here's the coolest: The Gossip Bench!

Check out those nasty cigarette burns!

You can see the little sample of the fabric I picked out to cover the cushion in. Here it is, a little bit bigger:

Fabric was 50% of at Hancock Fabrics, meaning that I got enough for this project for around $5. Sweet!

Now back to the bench:

The bench was in bad shape, no doubt. And it also stunk. Like, 1950s cigarette smoke stunk (which is why my cat Gracie was SO obsessed with sniffing it).

So the first thing I did? Get rid of the smell.

I had no intention of using that nasty vinyl. It went straight into the trash. The upholstery foam underneath wasn't too bad, so I wanted to save it. I put it in the wash (NO BLEACH!- if you don't know what chemicals are in the foam you could potentially be playing "chemistry experiment" in your washing machine....) for a few cycles, then set it out to dry in the sun.

Here it is, soaking up some rays:

While it was drying out, I started painting the bench part.

Okay, true confession: Most of the time, I'm too lazy to prime. And most of the time it's okay. However, this time- not okay. Check out my primer oops:

So at this point my weekend was rapidly ending, so I packed everything up and let it dry for a week.

Then this past Saturday I got it all back out and put it together. The finished result?

Voila!

And from the side:

And once again, just for comparison:

BEFORE

AFTER

I'm super proud :)