Vintage Bench – from Boring to Mauve-lous!

Before we moved from Calgary I found this little vintage telephone table. I was so charmed by the shape of it that I snapped it up with intentions of making it sweet again. It was in pretty bad shape. It had a wiggly leg and the upholstery was…ew. But then we got the news that we would be moving and so this project went on the back burner as other things took priority. We moved this bench to BC and into the garage it went.

Now that we’re settled in and the major priority updates to the house are mostly done I had time to focus on making this wee vintage telephone table pretty again. Fun! Home Hardware offered me their Beauti-Tone colour of the year You Look Mauve-lous! and I knew it would be perfect in the colour scheme of our home.

It’s actually very similar to the colour we used in our Master Bathroom Makeover and had I known Beauti-Tone paint was so awesome to work with I’d have used it! Oh hindsight – you are so 20/20.  I had never used paint from Home Hardware before so I was eager to get at it and I was pleasantly surprised with this product!  I might use the rest of the can to repaint the bathroom because I wasn’t happy with the product we used and the coverage is not so great. The colour though, I really am loving it. It’s feminine but not overly so and it had brought our bathroom into a modern age. Okay, on to the makeover!

I used a sponge roller for a smooth finish and a small brush for the hard to reach bits. Two coats was all I needed and I didn’t use primer because I was assured this would work well without it. They did not lie! I chose a trim and door paint for tough coverage and it went on really nicely and bonus – it will suit the bathroom space well too if I do decide to repaint in there.

I ended up replacing the whole seat. It was really gross. So gross. And the foam was falling apart and yet glued on so I couldn’t just remove it – there was no saving it. I had a piece of plywood in the garage that was perfect so I made a brand new seat from the bottom up. The fabric I picked out makes me so stinkin happy – it goes so well with the grey mauve paint!

I did leave some of the imperfections on the piece. There was some missing trim and it’s hard to see but there is a chunk out of the laminate on the table top. Sometimes it’s not about making something perfect – it’s about making it enjoyable again. I am absolutely enjoying this little bench!

This colour goes really well with the other paint colours we have in the home. They’re all grey toned blues so I can use this bench pretty well anywhere. It might bounce around a bit in this home as the urge to swap things up takes over – as it does on occasion!

 

I’m just so pleased with it. I think I paid $30 for her originally. The fabric was $9 including an interfacing which I ironed on. I already had the plywood to replace the seat and I used some aging towels as new padding for the upholstery job. They worked perfectly, there’s just the right amount of softness now. I’d say, all in, this was a $50 bench. She’s totally worth it and it took me hardly any time at all. I think I spent more time taking photos.

**since this post was published I’ve sold this bench and man alive, people were fighting over the thing. I could have sold 10 of them! If you are interested in flipping furniture, read more here.