Garden Bench Upcycle

PROJECT COST: $24
PROJECT TIME: 2 Hours
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Moderate
MATERIALS: Outdoor Rust Resistant Spray Paint, Wood stain, Screwdrivers and wrench, 1 x 3 wood planks (if you need to replace your wood)

This project has been on my list for years. A few years ago when a friend of mine moved she gave me her wood and iron benches. Both were pretty run down and needed to be fixed up and I just haven't had the time. By the time I got to these several screws had already fallen out and the boards has splintered and a couple had broken.

Needless to say these probably were not the most safe seats to use. The first thing I did was to unbolt the main boards across the middle and up the back to pull the side off. Then I took all the screws out of the back panel and pulled the middle decorative iron piece out of the arched wood. I scrubbed everything down with a stiff metal brush and soapy water and then rinsed everything and left it to dry.

 Like I said several of my wood slats for the seat were slivered and broken so I actually bought new wood and cut it so the same length as the old wood and drilled new holes in the boards. If your wood is still ok you could skip this part and save yourself a few dollars on the project. The wood that is arched in the back I didn't replace. It is not weight bearing for the bench and the large decorative piece holds it together pretty well. I did however sand that wood really well so that any slivers or splinter pieces would be removed. Make sure to lay your wood on a flat and even surface when it is wet - otherwise you will end up with warping issues which none of us want.

Next I spray painted the iron pieces with my Valspar paint. You can see in the picture that there is some rust on the iron. If you use a good rust resistant paint that is meant for outdoors and your clean the metal really well you shouldn't have any issues with it.

 Next I worked on the wood. I purchased 1 can of outdoor wood stain and had more than enough to finish 2 benches. It goes pretty far when you are careful with it. I just did 2 coats of stain on all the wood pieces and left them to dry. You can see a slight color difference between the arched wood that I didn't replace and the new boards I bought but I was kind of ok with that.

Once everything dried I went ahead and put it all back together. I had lost some bolts when I first got the bench so I took a couple of the old ones into Lowe's and purchased some new ones to replace the ones I lost. You can ask anyone in the Hardware department to help and they will find you a match. It cost me less than $2 to replace everything I needed for both of the large benches and the kids size bench. 

And that's it! I love the makeover and am so excited to put these new benches to use. We have them set around our fire pit for seating and now I'm not worried someone is going to get stabbed by a splinted board.