DIY Distressed Bench

I've had a drab, water stained and outdated front porch bench. It was boring. We only really used it in the summer while sitting outside while watching a summer rain storm. I loved how well it has held up, considering it was never stained and was painted with a Southwest design. Loved it but not really. Not really a conversation piece, know what I mean?

Meh. Not much to see here

One day, about 3 months ago, I was perusing Pinterest while looking for an easy DIY home makeover projects to do around the house. After all, we had just started looking for a house to move into and there needed to be some DIY home makeovers to fix a few things and bring out the personality in a few things before we sold it. This bench was in desperate need of some personality!

As I was thinking about distressing my cabinets, I came across a post about distressing furniture with Vaseline. Looked easy so I pinned it into my DIY board and decided I'd figure out what to distress within the month. I just could not think of one thing until I remembered my conversation that I had with my husband about painting the bench and turning it into a planter in my garden. That idea was quickly struck down because yes, at one time we used the bench and he still wanted it as a bench. Oh well, I thought, I could always paint it or stain it. Sanding off the bench proved to really bring out the wood grain, but it also proved to show the water spots too. Staining was out of the question so painting and distressing would be the only option.

I looked everywhere on Pinterest about what kind of paint to use. Flat, matte, gloss, chalk paint or whatever else kind of paint there was and then what to use to distress it and knew that I really didn't want to sand the bench to distress it. It's just not my thing. Finally, I came back to my pinboard and found the original post that I pinned and went over and over it to make sure that I had all that I needed. Paint, a brown base paint, some Vaseline and a shop rag later I was ready.

I was able to get one of the tester cans of paint to use as my base coat and then a pint can of a delicious teal color. I was in heaven when it was finished! So pretty and so easy! I wanted to make the bench look 'sat on' and 'used' - which is the goal when distressing.

By strategically placing the Vaseline on the corners and edges of the bench and on the back of the back of the seat, I was able to paint right over the Vaseline and after the paint had dried, I could wipe it off and the brown paint would show 'wear'.

Now that's personality!

I have had so many compliments on it and I am so impressed at how easy it was and fabulous it looks.

Thanks to Shanty 2 Chic for the awesome tutorial, so easy!