The One with the Refurbished Bench

First and foremost, a very special happy birthday shout out to my sister-in-law Bethany!She is an amazing harpist and has a CD called Hymns from the Harp: A wonderfully soft and introspective selection of hymns performed on the harp. The arrangements were penned and performed by a duo of harpists who met through the University of Arizona's HarpFusion ensemble. Bethany Evans and Nichole Neely give excellent readings of 14 hymns. A few of the hymns include vocals done in an equally gentle manner. An excellent choice for the Sabbath as well as any time a quiet, reverent mood is desired. ~ Dacia A. Blodgett-Williams
Chris and I are very excited to see Bethany and her husband Peter (and their two dogs!) at the annual Evans Family Reunion in a few weeks.



So I've had a bench sitting on our front porch from the day we moved in over two years ago. As it's been exposed to the elements it's gotten a li'l tattered and worn. Therefore I decided to give it a makeover. I had a vision in my head and I just can't decide if it's turned out the way I wanted.

Here is the before picture - the bench with so much potential.
First I took the legs off.
Then I sanded each of the legs. That took about two hours longer than I thought it would. Meh.
Then I painted the legs with four coats of blue and put the bench back together.
I have a bunch of different colors of blue paint from a previously flopped project.
I taped off the bench and got to painting stripes.
Done. Or am I? And that is the neighbor's cat that won't leave me alone. He knows I'm a softie. I call him Simba.
I can't decide if I like the final result or not. It reminds me of a beach towel as is. I could finish painting between the lines like I originally planned, but then I think there would be too much blue. Maybe. I just don't know.Or I could just say scratch the whole thing and paint the entire bench one solid color. That could be cool and unobtrusive.
I'm about as decisive as this picture is clear....I'll leave it up to opinionated people to decide. What should I do with the bench?