hey it's carrie from lovely etc and today i'm going to be doing a really fun furniture makeover
i'm going to be working on this cane bench which is very much not my style but has huge potential i
got it off facebook marketplace really cheap and i know it's going to be awesome i'm going to be
showing you how to take a dated piece of furniture and turn it into something beautiful that
looks like it came from a really high-end store i'm also going to be showing how to take a piece
of wooden furniture like this and transform it so that it's safe to use outdoors because what
i really need is a nice bench for my front porch i'm starting off with some demo i'm getting rid
of this big fluffy cushion and i'm also getting rid of these cutouts on the arms the easiest way
to redo a bench like this would be to simply put new fabric over the seat but i didn't want to do
that because i'm going to be using this outside and i really don't like upholstered furniture
outside at the very least you want to have a removable cushion so instead i'm going to give
it a wooden seat originally i was just planning to use the frame exactly as it was and add a new seat
but it turned out this front piece that was right here was pretty warped once i removed
the old upholstery so i took off the old piece of wood that was here and replaced it with this piece
of scrap wood that i have this actually came from my closet when i was removing the old shelves to
make my new diy closet organizer so i'm always looking for ways to reuse what i've already got
and the piece of wood that was here i will look for some way that i can reuse it somewhere else
i added some more support with cheap 2x2 boards around the edges of my bench and now i'm ready
to add the seat originally i was planning to buy wood planks and make a wood plank seat but
then i started looking at the original seat and i realized that underneath all the upholstery and
foam it actually had a really nice plywood seat that was in great condition and it was already cut
to almost the right size so i decided to use that instead so this is the plywood that was underneath
the upholstery i used my upholstery staple remover to take the old fabric and foam off of the plywood
backing this little tool is super handy for any kind of reupholstery project but if you don't have
one you can also just use a flathead screwdriver and needle nose pliers to get rid of all those
staples and now i have this nice plywood seat i did add a little strip of wood along the top so
here's the back of that piece of wood and you can see i added a little strip of wood across
one end and attached it with pocket screws so it'd be really sturdy and i did that because i
wanted my wood seat to hang over the end a little bit and when it was upholstered it was recessed
into this section and now i want it to go over so it's more comfortable for the legs
so now i'm ready to add this in place
and now we have a bench it still needs a little work but it's nice and sturdy so that's a good
sign so now i need to get ready for some paint and i need to fill in the holes on the sides
where i cut off the original detail and prime everything and add paint like i mentioned before
i am planning to use this bench outside on our front porch and i've used indoor wood furniture
like this outside before with good success so i feel confident that i can make it work
but there's a few things you need to keep in mind if you're considering doing the same thing
first of all if you're putting your furniture out completely exposed to sun
and rain with no cover it's really just not going to last it's not a good idea
even in a covered situation if you live somewhere with really extreme weather it could be a problem
i live in virginia we have all four seasons we have hot cold snow lots of rain but it's not
the desert it's not the tundra so i've had good luck with things lasting outside for years in
a covered setting but there are certain things you need to do to make sure that your furniture
finish will last if you're using paint you need to make sure that it's a paint that is appropriate
for outdoor use and exterior paint the reason they're different is they are rated to hold up
to uv rays and extremes in temperature and resist moisture and all the things you need protection
from outdoors painting is the easiest way to get a finish that you know is really going to stand up
but if you're not painting you're going to need to use some other kind of sealer over your wood
that's rated for exterior use and can hold up to those elements as well the other thing to know
is that whether you're painting or sealing some other way it's different than painting something
indoors you have to cover every single surface when i'm painting a dresser or something to use in
my house a lot of times i don't paint the back i don't paint the underneath of the drawers i don't
paint inside the drawers there's a whole lot of things you can get away with not painting because
nobody's ever going to see them but when you're painting something to be used outside even the
parts that are not going to be seen like the underneath of my bench have to be painted because
if they're not that wood is still going to take in moisture and it's going to lead to all kinds
of warping and other kinds of problems so you want every surface sealed and also of course
please do not put anything that is super expensive and precious to you or your grandmother's antiques
outside even on your covered porch because it's not going to last as long as it would inside most
of the stuff that i have used outside has been stuff that i found at yard sales or on the side of
the road and fixed up cheap and i felt good about getting some extra years of life out of it it's
not stuff that i want to have forever for the rest of my life okay so for my bench the next thing
i need to do is use some wood filler to fill in those holes where the details on the sides used to
be and put on a coat of primer i used zinsser oil based primer to prime my bench it's my favorite
primer for painting furniture because it sticks to any finish and it seals in wood tannins so that
they don't bleed through your final finish and yellow your paint especially when you're painting
a light color and then i followed that with a couple of coats of a light gray exterior paint
when you're painting cane furniture like this it's actually the perfect time to use a paint
sprayer like i did with my wicker furniture last year but this time i used a foam roller
and a paintbrush instead so if you're painting cane furniture the main thing to keep in mind
is you want to use as little paint as possible to get good coverage because you don't want to gum up
the caning so for me i found the best way to do it was to put a very light coat of paint
on with my roller and then use a small brush to spread it out to make sure that
there weren't any thick areas and then also i made sure to check the other
side of the caning each time i painted to make sure that it wasn't dripping out the back side
so here's my finished bench i love how it turned out it's beautiful it's sturdy it's going to make
great seating for our porch and i think it would work in a whole bunch of other parts
of our house as well and i feel pretty confident that it is going to have new life for many years
to come as long as my kids don't jump all over and do something crazy to destroy it since i was
able to use scrap wood that i already had left over from other projects and i even used paint
leftover from when i built my daybed last year i spent almost no money on this project which is
of course always my favorite if you haven't yet i would love for you to subscribe to my channel
lovely etc where i share lots of inexpensive ideas for creating a home that you love