Well it’s finally here! It’s Spring Fever Reveal day & I’m pretty excited to share what Kes & I’ve been slaving over working on!

When I think of spring projects for the home, the first things that tend to come to mind are storage and organization. So when we were tasked with a ‘spring paint projects’ challenge, we wanted to find an area of the house where we could solve a problem while adding a bit of style.

The entryway in my mom’s house was the perfect candidate. Home to a broken, non-functioning storage bench and constantly cluttered with shoes, we decided it was time for an upgrade. It took us a weekend, some PARA paint & stain, a little fabric and lots of elbow grease, but we were able to take the entry way from this…

PARA Spring Fever – Entry & Bench before

To this!

After: Entry & DIY Storage bench

This was our first attempt at building a bench (and really our first at any real type of woodworking) and I honestly couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

Building a DIY Storage Bench

We built the bench from 3/4″ pine veneer plywood & stained it using PARA TimberCare Solid Stain which we tinted in Runway (P5191-85D). Because we were trying to achieve such a dark colour we had to use a solid stain – but we watered it down slightly to allow a little more of the wood grain to show through. We then finished it off with PARA WoodCare urethane varnish to give it a nice glossy finish. One of the best things about PARA’s TimberCare & WoodCare lines is that they’re water-based, which means no awful smell AND clean up is a breeze! It would be a great choice for anyone who was interested in starting their DIY wood desk plans since they could use it to finish their newly built project.

Staining & painting DIY Storage Bench with PARA TimberCare stain (Runway) & PARA paint (Too Hot to Handle)

The bench seat, we were able to up-cycle from a piece that Kes got from a coworker. We decided the faux alligator skin had to go & instead covered it using the beautiful Landsmere fabric in Current from Tonic Living.

Covering bench seat with fabric from Tonic Living

For the storage boxes, we opted to paint them in a rich brick red (Too Hot To Handle – P5078-85) to match the existing feature wall in the entry.

There were a few hiccups here and there, and a couple moments of panic, but we made it through. I must send a special thank you to Kim of The Paint Store Plus Inc. our local PARA dealer for talking me off the staining ledge; as well as Janine of Tonic Living for going above and beyond to help us choose the perfect fabric for our project!

I love how the fabric picks up the other colours in the house!

🙂

So what do you think? Did we nail it??

Don’t forget – our PARA Blog Crew counterparts have been busy painting bees as well – so head on over to their blogs and check out their projects by clicking on the banners below! And once you’ve got your full dose of inspiration – be sure to come back & get in on the action by linking up a paint project of your own!