PJH Designs

I’m so excited to be celebrating one year of blogging! I never thought I would have enough to share for a whole year so I have surprised myself and hope I have inspired you.

I appreciate each and everyone one of my followers. I’m so honored that you like what I do and as a reward I have put together a giveaway for you.

This giveaway includes: a mirror painted “Duck Egg Blue” and turned into a chalkboard; a pair of vintage style curtain tie-backs; a set of four shabby, pink, outlet plates; French script, burlap ribbon; six drawer pulls from Hobby Lobby; and a lovely, green, ribbon scarf that I knit myself.

Here are some close ups of each item.

There are four ways to enter each one gives you a chance to win:

Become a follower of my blog either with GFC, LF, or Networked blogs and leave a comment. If you are already a follower just leave a comment.
“Like” me on Facebook and come back and leave a comment.
Share my giveaway on your blog and come back and leave a comment.
Follow me on Pinterest and leave a comment.

I will chose a winner using random.org on Friday, July 20, 2012. Good luck.

Now I want to share how I transformed an old bed head and foot board into a garden/porch bench.

Here is the after:

First, I told my helper what I wanted to do and how to go about getting started. (By the way my helper on this project was my son-in-law, Jeremy, who also did all the carpentry work in my kitchen renovation.)

We took the footboard and measured in 14” on each side and cut the ends off. We then attached the end pieces at a 90 degree angle on the front of the head board. This was a full size bed so the foot board had to be cut. A smaller bed may not need to be cut down.

I chose fourteen inches because this is the usual depth of a chair.Once the foot board ends were screwed into each side we added 2 x 4’s across the width for the seat.

As you can see here we cut two pieces of 2 x 4 and screwed them into the inside of each end two inches lower than the top so the seat would be flush with the ends of the bench. Did that make sense? The picture should help you understand.

I then filled in all the screw holes and rough spots with wood filler. Once that was good and dry I sanded the whole piece down and cleaned it. After that I painted it top and bottom with primer and then two coats of an outdoor, semi-gloss, white paint.

I painted the whole bench so that it would be suitable to use outside.

After it was dry (a couple of days later) I stenciled the floral vine design on the center panels and painted the tops of the post a pretty green. I just loved how it turned out and if I had a porch I would probably have kept it. lol

I’m looking for a pretty bed to make another one, but not having much luck. Not all head and foot boards will look as good as this one does and I’m kind of picky.

I hope you have enjoyed this makeover and are all fired up to make your own porch bench. I have to get back to preparing for my 4th of July party. I’ll share pictures and a couple of projects I did for my party later in the week.

Have a wonderful holiday.

Be safe.