The Laura Bench was made from a broken headboard my friend Laura found on the side of the road, on her way to my house, and my daughter's 10-yr old crib. The idea was to use mostly recycled wood furniture that would otherwise have ended up in the city dumpster.
The place where the bedrail would have connected to the headboard was broken, so I used my saw to even both sides. The sleigh headboard had nice curves I wanted to work with instead of hide. While looking for spindles or carved wood to make the legs out of, I saw my daughter's crib leaning on the garage wall (my daughter is now 10-yr old, I was definitely not going to be using this crib any time soon.) The crib had nice round rails that would be perfect as arms if I could figure out a way to install them upside down. The legs of the crib would make beautiful legs for this bench too, and would accentuate the curves on the sleigh headboard. The headboard itself is very heavy and so, I used barrel nuts and bolts to put the bench together so it could come completely apart and thus, make it easier to transport from one place to another and even fit in a smaller SUV without needing a truck. I hid most of the nuts and bolts using decorative hardware with little hinges that can be lifted when needing take the bench apart.
Once finished, the entire bench was painted black, and allowed to dry overnight. All edges were waxed with regular candle wax, and a few spots here and there at random, then the whole bench was painted with General Finishes Milk Paint in Persian Blue, Best product ever. I've done a lot of painted furniture pieces in ASCP before, but this was my first time using this product and let me tell you; it was FAR superior. I only used a quarter of the 473 ML can on the entire bench and the finish had a very nice sheen when it was done, no visible paint brush strokes are visible, you would think I used a roller, but I didn't. Once 2 to 3 coats of the GF Milk Paint were dry, I used kitchen scrubbing pad to go over the entire bench, the Persian Blue Milk Paint lifted right off on all the places where I had previously applied wax. Thus, the distressed finish. The bench still looked a bit plain, so I went back and applied a pewter (home made color) stencil on the center of what was the headboard for added design.
The end result is a true Cinderella story, both the headboard and the crib were abandoned and city dumpster bound. Instead both pieces were recycled, upcycled and are now getting much attention and love
Loretto Evans
