pew bench

So I showed you the pew bench we made a while back, and you saw it the other day in my entry uplift. 

But this here’s the whole story. 

First of all, our church decided to clean out and renovate our old chapel which had become a glorious early 1900s storage unit.  As a fundraiser, they offered the pews from the chapel for a recommended donation of $100 each.  I had a serious case of the covets for one but at the time I couldn’t afford it and with a rare spurt of budgetary self control, I restrained myself from buying one.  Self control isn’t usually my thing; cookies? sure!  I always kind of regretted having that rare burst at that specific time.

Many, many months later, my good friend from church was getting ready for her wedding to be the first event in the restored old chapel when, lo and behold, there was a pew left in the old chapel that was, and I quote, “in the way”.  They called me and asked if I would like to come pick it up.  As in: for free.  I most eloquently responded, “Uh, YEAH!!”  I had no idea how I was going to accomplish the acquisition of this 13 foot solid oak bench… in a minivan… with at least one backseat in it for the kids… by myself…  so the wedding planning ladies had to nag me a couple few several times to go and get it.

Finally I told the hubby he was helping me one night, and that he couldn’t argue.  He didn’t dare.  He could see the desperation in my eyes.  We had no vehicle or trailer long enough to haul it and decided we would have to remove the van seats, cut the pew inside the church and put the pieces side by side in the back of the van.  But when we got there, we agreed it was way too scary to fire up a chainsaw in the historic old chapel… with our church’s bible school meeting in the new chapel next door… surely there must be some moral code violation involved with running a chainsaw inside a historic building???  And a church, nonetheless.

We just couldn’t do it.  We went with the redneck method.

We hauled the whole thing out and shoved it as far as we could into the van, with about a third of it hanging out the back, untied, with the doors flapping – we hadn’t brought a rope since we planned on cutting it into smaller pieces and being able to close the doors.  I held onto it from the front seat so that it might not fly out.  I was sure we were going to get in some immoral / redneck / or in the very least, unsecured load kind of trouble trouble.  Have I ever mentioned I am a rule follower by nature?

We got home with no problems, though I kept waiting for a sheriff to pull up.  I know - something is wrong with me. The minute we set the pew down in the garage, Ty told me to draw a line where I wanted it cut and grabbed for his chainsaw.  For some reason unknown to me, I nonchalantly did as he said while he fired up the saw.  He cut off one end, so the pew would fit in our entry.  We took the arm rest off the scrap end and attached it into the piece cut to fit our entry, and wa-lah! 

We now have a pew bench in our entry. 

And loaded with sentimental value at that!!  What are your most sentimental pieces in your home?