crib to bench...part 2

I am thrilled how this project turned out! Last week we took apart our babies crib and decided instead of scrapping the wood, or trying to resell it (which we can't since the regulations on cribs changed this past year) we turned it into a bench. Thank goodness for Pinterest, I'm always finding neat ideas on there. 

There were a lot of holes left in the wood from the crib, so I bought Elmer's wood filler. The expert I chatted with at Home Depot said that once I fill the holes and let them dry, it would be easy to sand if I needed to. I used this stuff with ease, and it only cost me $3!

Before I started sanding the project, I looked online for ideas on how to paint wood without sanding. All of the sites I came across recommended using Glidden's Gripper Primer to use instead of sanding. A couple hours later I painted my bench in a Glidden High Gloss French Grey.

I couldn't wait for it to dry. As soon as it was, I found a perfect spot in my living room for my cozy homemade bench. 

 Not only is it a cute piece of furniture, but it's sentimental, and relatively cheap to make. 

I'm finding myself looking around our house at furniture differently now...wondering if I can repurpose it, or give it a fresh coat of paint. I definitely see more of these projects in my future. 

Crib to bench? ...part 1

Our baby boy turned two this summer. After school started this fall, we decided to make the transition to a big boy bed...aka toddler race car bed.

We weren't sure what we were going to do with the baby crib. It's sentimental since we used it for our daughter and now our son. We're not sure if we're having any more children, so we're not sure if we wanted to store it until we were sure. We found out that the crib standards have changed this year, and according to the guidelines our crib is deemed unsafe. So what to do with a crib we're not planning on using again, and we can't resell??? We decided to build a bench!  Of course, when i say "we" I mean "my husband". He's so wonderful and handy. I showed him pictures from a post I found online and he said "I can build that". So "we" ahem...."he" got to work.

Juan looked at the Cherry Crib and cherry wood changing table to see what pieces would work to make our bench! Of course Ethan wanted to help too!

When Juan started he tried attaching the different pieces together with screws. 

For it to be a sturdier piece of furniture, Juan decided to attach the crib pieces to a seat portion. That worked a whole lot better.

Looks sturdy enough for my little man. Don't you just love his shirt. It's bacon and eggs from Target!

It's starting to look more like a bench. Attaching one side of the crib to the bench.

Can you see how much help I was during this process?  I'm saving my energy for painting. haha.

Ta da!!! My new bench. I'm so excited to still be able to have our baby crib that meant so much to us, but now as a usable piece of furniture. Now I get to paint. I can't wait to go choose a color. This will be a fun project on my next day off.