A Long Time Coming

 Lookee what I got!

I finally, after 23 years, have a bench in my mudroom that seats two adults (or four small grandchildren) for putting on and taking off footwear!  This is something I've been wanting, and from time to time keeping an eye out to purchase, for literally decades.

Initially, DH didn't want me to buy one because he was going to make one.  I honestly believe, in 2003, when we were finishing up the house at this little place here enough to get our occupancy permit, that he did have the best intentions on building a bench.  Temporarily, we had two plastic lawn chairs (you know, the white kind that was so popular in the early 2000s) there in the fall and winter.  

Maybe they were actually there longer, as I don't remember what came between them and the small, narrow, not very heavy duty, more decorative than useful, bench that I found at Goodwill around about 2006 or so and stuck in my mudroom.  Yeah, 2006 and DH hadn't had time yet to make me that bench he intended to make.

That little bench stayed in the mudroom until about 2016 when it started to pop apart in places because it really wasn't intended for large adult men to sit on.  I banged those joints back together and moved it to near my front door, where it stayed until around 2019 when I gave it to DD1 for her house.

Next in the mudroom were two 'extra' wooden dining chairs as we had bought six new ones for our dining room table because three of the original six had broken by that point.  It made sense to stick two in the mudroom for everyday use putting on and taking off your shoes, plus they'd be handy when we needed to seat extra people at the table.

At some point, one of the chairs started to deteriorate in strength, and we strapped a booster seat for a grandchild on it to ensure that someone lightweight used it for family meal gatherings.  Which left just one chair in the mudroom.

Yeah, post-2016, DH still had not gotten around to making that bench.  In his defense, from 2014 through Covid 2020 his work schedule was horrendous and I think in many ways both of us were just trying to keep up on the basics (him working 60 or more hours each week, plus work travel, and me trying to work plus do my chores plus take up the slack on the most important chores of his).  Nevertheless, time went by and no custom made by DH bench ever happened.

Fast forward to now.  I happened to be heading out in my trusty rusty Suburban to go run some errands (because one of the errands possibly entailed needing more trunk space than Sweet Madame Blue has) and saw, two miles down the road, a sign for a garage sale.  It happened to be at the house of someone I used to know pretty well; the mom of a friend and softball teammate of DD1 throughout high school. So I pulled in her driveway, partly to see what she was selling and partly just to say hi.

Long story short, after talking to her a bit and finding out how all three of her (now adult) kids were doing (as well as how many grandkids she has), I looked through her sale offerings and I saw this bench!

It's sturdy!  It's big enough for two adults!  It's solid wood!  And the price was very right.  So I told her I couldn't live without it, handed her some cash, put it into the back of the Suburban (yay, cargo space!) and brought it home.

It's going to live in my mudroom forever because this is what I've been wanting and waiting for.  (Unless, of course, in retirement, DH becomes a furniture maker, in which case I will gladly swap it out for a DH-made bench of similar size and styling.  Because now that I've acquired what I've waited 23 years for, an oak--or pine--plank on plank-width legs with no back [his original homemade mudroom bench idea] is not going to do.)