benches I have made

This is the interior of the bench that I have posted on my profile page.  I bought the frame at a dear community lady's estate sale.  She was so sad the day of the sale, but a few weeks later, I was on my way home from a craft show in a neighboring town, and I drove by the apartment where she now lives, she was sitting outside, and I had it on my trailer, so I just had to stop by and show it to her.  She was thrilled to see what I had done with her old frame.  I think I paid a dollar for it.  One of the legs was rusted off at the bottom, but I just took part of the pipe that I cut out of the center of the footboard, and repaired it during fabricating the bench frame.

This is one of the first benches I made.  If you zoom in, you can see how in the beginning, using the siderails, I welded them directly to the main frame.  Since then, I have begun keeping the rail ends intact, and when the style allows, I incorporated them into the seat/main frame.

It seems these things all have a story!  I acquired this frame from a local furniture store that got it from a local retired lady who bought a new bed.  When the store owner set up her new one, she wanted to get rid of this "old thing"  upstairs.  I had ran an ad in the paper for old bed frames, and she remembered seeing that, so she called me and let me know where to go get it.  It had most of the old brown paint intact, and was painted over with gold colored paint.  After I got the welding done, I touched up the paint, and rubbed it down with steel wool to give it a two-tone look, then put a couple of clear coats on to finish.  Not long after I got it done, she CALLED me back, and wanted to know how much I wanted for it!  She had thought about it, and wanted it back to give to either her daughter-in-law, or granddaughter.  These kinds of projets are the best, because I know how much an old bed frame could be such an heirloom.

Wouldn't you like to see this one finished???  Me too!  I went to another estate sale to bid on this one.  Quite a story here, too.  At the craft show that I mentioned in photo #1, a gal came by and wanted a bench (only single size I had) that I had.  Well, she procrastinated, and left, and by the time she came back later, I had sold it to another couple.  She was disappointed, but said she still wanted one.  Well, at this sale, she shows up about 10 minutes before it sells, and I told her she could sure bid on it, and I would make the bench for her.  She got, it, and sent it home with me.  That was 4 months ago, and I am still waiting on her to tell me what type of seat to put on it.  I know what you are thinking, "What a shame to make a bench from such a beautiful frame!"  My only defense is that with the knuckles on the frame where the rails fit, a couple of them are partly broken off, so the rails don't want to stay attached.  Does that excuse me?

Right!  This was NOT a bed, it was an old commode.  I was at a junkyard, picking out old bed frames, and came across this, and since I got the guy talked down to the same price as the average of the beds, I got the irresistable "urge" to "GO" with it!  At least I didn't have to do a bunch of work to make it functional!  I call the others "flower beds", so what do you think this would now be???  Yeah, flowerpot!