The {Incredibly Long, Drawn Out, But Totally Worth It} Building of a Bench

If I told you three months ago that I'd be sitting here now, on this very bench, writing this, I probably would have said "well, what the heck took ya so long?"

Life, man.

Also wood.
And caulking.
And layers of paint and poly.
And mostly being total amateurs.

But no matter, our truly beautiful window seat is finally finished--and I'm finally writing about it!

----- BEFORE -----

I had to seriously dig for a "before" picture of the breakfast nook. I guess I was subconsciously avoiding documentation of the space because I couldn't handle staring at it--well, more like the worn, sorry, destroyed table--any more than I already had to on a daily basis. The table is also in the works now...also a very long and drawn out process.

Sneak peek!
...don't hold your breath...

But that's another post for another month. Or ten. I digress.

BUILDING

We taped out our bench plan on the floor with a whole lot of eyeballing and very little expertise...

 

Peter built the frame by measuring and cutting and hammering and stuff...

And voila! It looked amazing! Just kidding. It was days upon days of trial and error. I can't pretend to give even a halfway decent recap of his process and I'm not going to try because there are already lots of tutorials out there for this part, but let's just say there was a lot of measuring, cutting, and hammering followed by some tearing apart, re-measuring, re-cutting and hammering, interspersed with buckets of frustration and threatening to just tear it all down because we didn't have the right tools and clearly it just wasn't going to work. Thank goodness he persevered--my hero!

A few things about the building process I can speak relatively intelligently about:

• We had a vent on the floor, so to solve that issue we put an air return on the side of the bench, and in the framing process Peter placed an angled wood panel to direct the air accordingly.
• We studied lots and lots and lots of window seat pictures and pins, and ultimately decided to go with a board and batten style instead of beadboard because it seemed like it would be easier to finish the way we wanted. The style will also carry through best with our board and batten style cabinets that I plan to paint gray (someday) and all the designs we have for our eventual island makeover. 
• We opted against a hinged opening for the bench because that would be way too difficult without the right type of table saw and we didn't need another place to store more junk--we need to get rid of junk. 
• We don't have a nail gun either so each nail was expertly placed by hand. Talk about tedious. But as I'd assumed (and much to his surprise) it all looked great once the last nail was in. 
• Our low windows were a challenge when figuring out molding; there wasn't much space between the top of the bench and the bottom of the window sills, but we still needed something to add the finishing touch and hide the edges and the space between the bench and certain parts of the uneven wall. (Seriously--why are walls so uneven!). Ultimately we found molding that was simple and small enough to fit and cover all the spaces. Peter can tell you all about how fun that was to install. 

The last nail!!!

Then it was my turn to become an 'expert' in filling, caulking, painting, and poly (including learning that there is more than one kind of poly; polyurethane and polycrylic). 

The one thing I could not for the life of me find was a good tutorial on caulking built-in furniture. And there was certainly nothing in my Google search returns about using wood fill for spaces too wide for caulk. So I'll go into a few deets on these...

WOOD FILL

I read in one blog that caulk, like grace, has the magical ability to "cover a multitude of sins." Thankfully, my architect brother-in-law confirmed that it's best if those sins are less than 1/8 inch in width. Otherwise, use wood fill first! 

Even though I knew what I needed, Peter wasn't quite sure what I meant when I sent him to the store for wood fill/composite (hey, at least I remembered something from middle school wood shop even if I can't do the building part like he does!). So the hardware store people sent him home with some patch-n-paint, which was messy and gummy and time consuming, but worked a-ok. If you have a similar project, just make sure it says wood fill/composite, wood putty, etc. Or just do what we do and ask a smart Homeboy Depot guy or gal. 

Lessons learned:

• Have lots of wet paper towels on hand to clean up messes and mistakes quickly.
• It shrinks as it dries, so it's better to overfill and shave off excess if needed with an exacto knife than underfill and have to add more and wait again for it to dry. 
• Be patient.
• But really, it takes awhile. Find a good playlist.
• Be more patient. (It will be worth it!)

Purty, huh?

CAULKING

I read and watched a LOT of tutorials on caulking, but they were specific to tile and baseboards and windowsills, not unfinished wood benches that needed to transition seamlessly to their adjacent walls, so I was a little uncertain of how things would go. Thankfully, turns out this project didn't differ too much from those I studied up on. Most of the same principles applied. When it was time to buy the stuff at the hardware store, I had a caulking gun in hand (like all the tutorials had called for) but the guy pointed me to a squeeze tube of the very caulk I needed and said "this is much easier, just cut the tip and go," thus saving me some money and--to my best knowledge--some time and stress. Though I did get a little carpal tunnel out of the deal. The process itself was simple, albeit time consuming. The best tips I learned from tutorials and along the way:

• A pointer finger with a trimmed nail works way better than that little DAP tool thingie I thought I had to have.
• Water is your friend. Have plenty on hand, and more wet paper towels for mistakes and to wipe off excess caulk.
• Get caulk that is PAINTABLE if you are planning to caulk before painting, not after.
• Caulk shrinks just like wood fill. You might have to do a seam or two (or all of them, ahem) twice. Two tubes of caulk covered the project for me.
• Start with a small cut on the tip of the tube of caulk to control the size of the bead. You can always go bigger but you can't go smaller...

My process was simple. I had a little bowl with dipping water (that one of the kids mistook for a holy water font, ha); I squeezed out a bead of caulk along a seam at a time--or half a seam at a time if it was a really long edge, like the back of the bench--then dipped my finger generously in the water before running it along the line of caulk to smooth it into the corner. Whenever caulk started to build up on my finger, I quickly cleaned it off with a wet paper towel, dipped in the water again, and continued where I left off for a smooth line.


Lessons learned:

• I'm so glad I used the wood fill first based on how much the caulk shrunk after drying. I could've used more in some places; after a few weeks of use the bench does have one split in the paint along a seam where I didn't fill/caulk enough, which I'll have to re-do. 
• Caulking over the nails before painting was key. I caulked both over nails that stuck out to smooth the edges and ones that were driven in to fill the nail hole/little divet that was left.

PAINTING AND SEALING

After caulking, it was time to paint. From the moment we considered this bench I knew I would have to do this part right. Being in an eating area and at the mercy of three kids, I knew it would have to withstand a load of abuse, and be as well-sealed and wipeable as possible. 

In the end, I primed one coat, painted two coats, and used four coats of poly. 

Primed & ready for paint

Lessons learned:

• Poly does not roll on well; use a brush (learned after the first coat). Though poly dries clear, you can still see the brush strokes (learned after the second coat), so brush in the natural direction of the grain, not the easiest direction.  
• After researching, I chose polycrylic over the paint versus polyurethane, because I read that while polyurethane is great over wood stain, it has an oil base which can yellow over time. Not really a problem with wood, but over paint, especially white paint, it can be very visible. Polycrylic, on the other hand, is water-based and doesn't yellow, and is therefore a better choice when sealing paint. *THE MORE YOU KNOW*.

And that, my friends, is the very long and drawn out (but totally worth it) explanation of how we got to this, the after--or maybe you just scrolled right to it like I would:

----- AFTER -----

  

It's already our favorite place, and I have no doubt that it will continue to be for many, many years to come. 

Ninjas taking a break between chores for some...
meditation...? Or something. And giving
me a break post painting and pre-polying!

The great thing about finishing something meant to
sit on...you can finally sit. Slash collapse. Forever.