Our bench...

We finished an awesome project last night! Our living room seating was rather limited with the furniture we had, so a few weeks ago Isaac (of course) came up with a creative idea of finding an old bookshelf, turning it on its side, and then getting a combo piece of furniture that served as both a bench and a bookshelf. Then off we went, searching for our perfect piece to work with, and after a few trips to the ReStore (one of our favorite stores in the 'ham), we found the perfect piece this past weekend! I should have taken a before shot of how the shelf started because it was originally a section of a cupboard that had been torn off the rest of the shelves, so it had random strips of molding around parts of the edges and it had a huge cupboard door on the front of it. Not exactly nice living room material, but nothing phases Isaac. He's always able to see the treasure no matter what the original product looks like. So he sanded, stripped the molding off, took off the door, primed and painted it while I made my mom proud at the sewing machine. We wanted to make a cushion that was more than just two pieces of cloth sewed together...we wanted thick edges and good corners so it looked more rectangular. So we bought some fun fabric, and spent the next few hours trying to figure out how we were going to make this work. But we did it! And we even sewed a huge zipper into the back so we could get the foam in easily! Now this is probably not that big of a deal for you seamstresses out there, but you have to remember that this is only the second time I've used out sewing machine and the first was only for simple pillows. So we were really proud of our creation. And last night, the paint was finally dry so we filled it with books, placed it in it's new home by our front door, and took a picture to share with you guys. Our little home is coming together! PS...that's our little Kumquat tree next to it in the big yellow pot. And it's growing!