My Ethan Allen Bench Makeover~From Chewed to New

Years and years ago, we purchased an Ethan Allen Georgian Court Cherry Queen Anne style tufted bench.  It was so beautiful.  I wish I had a picture of it when it was new...it was upholstered with peach colored velour.  I loved it.

Over the years, it got to looking pretty shabby.  Many dogs used it as a stepping board to the bed...the dogs are long gone...the bench was covered several times...but the legs always survived with no "dog damage"....until....until....Suzy!  Suzy is a Black Lab that we rescued at the age of 8 months.  She had lived those 8 months at the end of a chain.  So, we have forgiven her for every transgression...(and there have been many).  This poor bench is just one of many things Suzy has destroyed in the 3 years we have had her.  Here is a close up of some of the damage on my beloved bench.  It looks like a family of beavers worked on it, LOL.  I'm just going to sand it down and paint it and then recover the cushion one more time.

You can see the layers of material...and the original Peach upholstery peaking through there.

Another view of the chewing.  She chewed the carved detail off this leg.

Another view of the worst damage.

I should have taken more "before" pics, because all the legs had deep puncture marks.  This was the worst leg though, and although I would have loved to try to stain it and refinish the wood back to its original glory, alas, the damage was just too severe.

So, since the bench has such sentimental value to me....I decided to try to sand it as best I could and then paint it, instead of throwing it out.  I toyed with using the Annie Sloan Chalk paint that is all the rage in Blogland, but since I had some Benjamin Moore black gloss paint on hand, I decided to use that.

As for the upholstering...with so much damage, I didn't feel I was good enough to tackle button tufting, so just using my staple gun to cover the bench top was my decision for the top.

Here are views of the finished bench. 

I think it has been saved for a few more years of use.  Two coats of black Benjamin Moore gloss paint and then 3 coats of Quick clear.  Maybe next time around, I'll change the upholstery, but I had this left over from the last time it was upholstered, and I do love it.

This is the culprit...our SuzyQ!

It's a good thing we love her.  I can't list everything she's destroyed.

I'm still so new, and can't figure a lot of things out yet.  I have no idea how to get this post to show in the "Makeovers" tab...