Table turned Bench (Anthropologie Style)

Before we got Gretzky, I came across a super adorable coffee table from A Cat and The Fiddle, a little shop in Rosemount, Minnesota where my parents lived.  Only open every so often, local thrifters and DIYer's rent out these rooms and sell their pieces to the public.  Needless to say it is worth the drive to get there.  You would be shocked at the deals on these one of a kind pieces.  Moving on, I got this coffee table for $70.00 and it was quickly put in the center of our living room.  It would be a shocker if you came over and I didn't talk about it.  Fast-forwarding a couple of months, Shane came home for lunch one day and noticed the top of the table was completely chewed up.  My beloved table had a day with the puppy monster.  Defeated, the table made it's way to the garbage can, but was quickly removed. Something told me to hang on to it, you know, just in case.

I told my parents about my table dilemma.  They were there when I purchased it, after all.  They saw the gleam in my eye.  Dad told me to bring it up to Rosemount and he would put a new top on it.  There it sat in their garage for months.  The intent was there to fix it up, but it didn't happen.  My parents, the traveling gypsies, informed us they were moving yet again, so the table found it's way back home, in our basement where the spiders dwell.

I follow a blog called Little Green Notebook pretty religiously.  We have fairly similar taste in home decor and I just think she is a classy lady with classy ideas, but with a lot more money and time.  Anyway, she blogged about a little DIY table that she turned into a bench for her studio.  Well, this table was so similar to what I had wasting away in the basement, that I decided to give it a go, except with my own little twist.

The Little Green Notebook blogged about how the fabric of her now bench was an Ikea rug.  Because I am a fan of being inventive, I wanted to check out such rug myself.  The rug she used was Lappljung in black.  However, when I went to Ikea, the black and red Lappljung rug was sold out!  All they had left was the blue, and since I drove all the way up there for this damn rug I wasn't driving away with nothin'.  So I snatched it.

Decking the Outdoors

We hope everyone had a sparkling Fourth of July filled with memories, pride, honor and borderline heatstroke.  We couldn't have wished for better weather.  Thank you Mother Nature.  You da bomb.

This week/end we were able to get the majority of our newly designed deck completed.  Not going to lie, there were lots of moments of "what the **** did we get ourselves into?"  In the end, us humans prevailed.  

We were able to reuse a lot of what we had, fortunately.  Therefore, the cost wasn't too unbearable, in fact it was quite reasonable.  We certainly aren't experts at deck building as this is a first for us, but what I can tell you is the materials that we used to make our deck are far less expensive than "traditional" deck materials... and the end result kinda makes me want to eat a Chipotle burrito.

Cost Breakdown:

19 4x4x4 wood posts= $87.00

26 3/4x10 feet galvanized pipes= $92.00

12 boxes of screws= stopped counting

L brackets= $20.00

Pipe cutters= $60.00

2 2x2x8= $10.00

2x8x12= $15.00

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Grand Total:  $350.00ish

For a very typical and very basic deck similar in size (11x16), you are looking at $4,000.00.  We win!  This price point was found courtesy of amazingdecks.com by using their deck estimator.

Just to get our thank you's out there, there would be absolutely no way we could have done this without the help of my parents.  Even after dad's knee surgery he was ripping up deck boards with the best of 'em.  My dad could in fact be a superhero...  

My mom was even able to get the rest of our deck furniture painted.  We love you mom!  As an added bonus, our stainless steel appliances have never looked better.

If you don't remember what our deck looked like before, here is a little refresher-- Old Deck

In no particular order, here is a photo montage of our three days together with the deck:

The rail removal process begins

Dad the demolition man.

The rails are down!  Gretzky is enjoying the open view.

Posts are up!

Galvanized piping going up.

Even the pups enjoyed all of the outdoor time:

 Momma getting her paint on. Doesn't she do fabulous work?  I love this Poppy Red color by Rustoleum.

This photo represents seven seats.  That means seven people can comfortably chill on our deck.  Please tell me it is a normal "mature adult" reaction to get excited over these kind of things.

Aaaand last but not least, here is the deck at 85% completion:

Still a few things left to do, but it's giving me so many smiles!  I just love it so much!  Time to break this sucker in soon.  Black-out and get wasted party photos coming soon... not.  We wouldn't put those up for public viewing, but the party part will happen. Happy Monday!