Revamping Plain Porch Into Stunning Front Yard | Episode | Great Home Ideas

Tara and Jason revamp a plain front yard by adding a wraparound deck, charming picket fence and garden beds, while Graham visits Hampshire, UK and meets a legendary Aussie gardener Marilyn Abbott. Adam contructs an epic giant peg seat.

0:00 – Coming Up on Great Home Ideas
00:20 – Exterior renovation to front yard
21.57 – Garden tour Hampshire Estate
32:13 – DIY furniture giant seat

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Looking for a project for the long weekend? Well, our front of house makeover might be exactly what you need for inspiration. What happens when an Aussie gardener takes on the Brits at their own game? We’re about to say good day. Come on. What’s Adam building that starts with a peg? I’m going to join MacGyver with this DIY project. The front of your place can say everything about you or nothing at all. It’s a big chance to make a great first impression. So Jason and I have taken on the challenge of a facelift for this cute little house, but this is going to be non-surgical. I like the old houses, the ones that haven’t been touched, but there’s a lot of that. It’s not many of those around though these days. I mean, this sort of place is typical, isn’t it? You’ve got bits and pieces that have been added on over the years. Morning guys. Hi. How are you? Hey, guys. Home sweet home. Yeah, we weren’t talking poorly of your house, but we were saying that it’s like multigenerational because there’s a few things there that just don’t match. You got the brand new front door, you got the old windows, the cladding, you can see where the veranda was, but you can’t really tell what kind of house it is. What made you fall in love with this place? Um, I think location and it’s um, you know, one story is really good. We’ve got young children, so it just really suits us, but it definitely could use a bit of a revamp out the front. It’s not all bad. No, we’ve got um this really sandy soil, that coastal soil, so it’s um a bit hard to get the lawn to grow. That sort of died off very quickly. In terms of style, what do you guys love? Um I would say we really love coastal style. Like um we love, you know, be green succulents and coastal grays and whites. So I think um that’s probably what we love. We love the beach and that inspiration. So luckily he and I kind of know what we’re doing, so we should be able to make that happen. Awesome. Deal. Deal. Yeah. Deal. Okay, get to work, Danny. Start digging. Fixing up Stuart Mill’s place has to start with a clear out, of course. [Music] It’s the little trims and details that really can bring a mismatched house together. These windows, well, they’ve both been installed in completely different ways. So, I’m ripping the whole lot off. [Music] To replace it, I’m adding this slightly more slimline contemporary profile. I think once it’s painted up, the two windows, well, they’ll match together just a little more harmoniously. So, the lily hedge. So, rather than just pulling it out and throwing in a skip bin, we’re going to transplant them. Now, the best way to do it is soak them with water. That way, the plant goes through less shock. Put them straight into the pot, back fill them with potty mix, and water them. So, do you get the drift? They need plenty of water so they don’t go through shock. If you’re going to put a skip bin on the road, you need to check with the council. There’s a very good chance you need to get a permit. [Music] With the garden cleared up, we have a blank canvas to work with. You and I are big fans of doing the dark fences, aren’t we? Cuz look how nice when you put put the greenery in front. It just really shows it off. So, we’re going to use grays as well for the front of the house. Now, Stu and Mel have told us they want a coastal theme. So, to achieve that look, we’ll add crisp white trims. And I’m thinking a boardwalk for the front path, just like you’d see at the beach with heaps of strappy leaf grasses and some bench seats to go with a new picket fence. There you go. There’s the house. There’s the house. There’s the garden. All of this might seem just a little bit overwhelming, but you know, any of these projects would be ideal to tackle over the weekend, especially painting. So many houses have powdercoated aluminum windows. These ones, mission brown. Now the usual thing for people who are renovating is to rip these out. But there is a better way. You can in fact paint powder coated aluminium. As with anything you paint, preparation is the key. So the first thing to do is make sure you thoroughly mask up your windows using a fairly fine grade of sandpaper. This is a 180. Just give it a light sand across the top. Dust them away. And then the next thing, cuz they’re metal, is you need to use an etch primer. This is a spray that goes over the metal and prepares it for the top coat of color. Well, the edge primer is nice and dry. So, now we can start introducing our accent color of white. So, I’ve gone for a satin enamel in a high performance spray paint. This one is specially intended to go over metal. You must know by now that paint is probably my favorite part of any makeover. Incredible transformations are done simply with a coat of paint. [Music] How amazing is our little house looking already? Couple of coats of paint and it has been completely transformed. We don’t even have the garden done yet and already I’m loving it. Now, one last thing that I’m doing now is just painting these steps to tie them in with our color scheme. I’m using a matte finish non-slip paving paint. This one’s oil based, so it sticks really well. I think this gray combined with all of these other shades makes it look contemporary and very classic. So, the fence panels are gone, but I’ve left the posts. Now, I’m still going to run a string line through because I might be able to move them over and straighten up a little bit. What I’m going to do is put a rail on the front [Music] and paint the post before I put the pickets on. It’s always a good idea to put the coats of paint on your pickets before you put them up. That way I can get all the nooks and crannies. Now, this is about as close as it gets to a cheap picket fence. We’re not replacing the post. They’re staying in place. So, we’re just buying the rails and the picket. A little tip, when you’re putting your picket on, bring it up to your string line, find the string line where it’s moving, and then come down about 1 mm so you can see air between the two. Sunny’s [Music] Jace, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying you do a picket bed fence very well. Stop it. You pick colors better than anyone. Now, do you notice something about the stairs? The first step’s this big. It’s like a baby step. Then the next one’s massive and the other two match. So, I’m actually going to go over the top of this on top of this one, which will make this massive one the same as these other two and square it up. I didn’t need to paint that. Well, two out of three. But I think also we need to do something here. So, I’ve got a plan for there. And your fence has given me a little bit of inspiration. I can lift heavy things. Can you like string lines? Yeah, this is hard work. Not everyone can do this. Really? No knots. Often it’s not what you take away from a building that can make a big difference. It’s what you can add. Those columns for instance, well, they kind of do nothing at the moment. We could easily have removed them, but you know, one being a little bit taller than the other, they don’t match. I thought we’d make something of them and give them purpose. So, an awning will do just the trick, and we can make that easily. It’s pretty simple build. I’m just using exterior grade treated pine. I’ve undercoated it to make it a bit easier to paint afterwards. And it’s a basic construction. Triangle at either end and some beams across the middle to connect the two together. Oh, just in time. So, I’m going to hand this over to Greg now to install above the doorway while I get busy with the roof. Now, the material we’re using for this is actually marine ply. It’s so good to use outside cuz it’s going to be moisture stable. For the underside, I’ve painted it white. Really good idea because again, that’s going to be like the ceiling and it’s going to bounce light around and just brighten up that whole entryway. Now, for the top of it, I want to clad it so it ties in with Jason’s fence. So, I’ve got this cut to size. So, it’s just the timber planks, but where he’s got that wide gap, instead I’m putting another piece of timber over the top. Kind of looks like shingles, and it adds a really nice texture and profile. Now, everything gets a coat of paint, and then we can put it all together above the door. [Music] It’s looking good already. I love this awning. It’s so much fun. It adds a lot of character to the building, don’t you think? There you go, Greg. This is where it ties in with Jason’s fence. But instead of doing the same color as the fence, that lovely soft gray, I’ve chosen to go the darker gray, which is the same as what we’ve done for the gutter and also the side fences, that makes it feel really balanced and complete. I think it’s added a really great touch to the house. So, the front path is going to look more like a boardwalk, which means it’s going to feel like you’re at the beach. Now, if you stain them or paint them before you put them into place, it means you can do all the edges nice and easy. I’m standing up straight, not killing my knees. Now I’m putting stain in with a roller. Normally you do it with one of those expensive wool mat things. It doesn’t really matter. The treated pine sort of sucks it in at all different consistencies. So, but when it’s over the whole lot, it’ll look uniform. It’s just like building a deck, but instead of using a decking board, I’m using the sleepers. Now, to keep these in place, I’m using these anchor screws. They work just like Dinobolt. What you do is you drill a hole into the masonry just slightly smaller than the screw. The screw goes in, forces itself in, and if you want to get it out, good luck. Just set up a string line so I can lay out all the sleepers and see how they sit before I screw any down. [Music] The speed that this goes down and gets put together compared to doing a traditional paving job or even doing a deck just with your normal boards is priceless. We’ve done this in about 90 minutes where if it was decking boards on a subframe, it’ probably be a day’s work. No pre-drilling, just straight into the treated pine using big heavy bugles. It’s going to keep it all in place and it looks fantastic. So, a sleep is about 11 bucks down at Bunnings that this is some of the cheapest materials you can work with. A nice work. It’s nice and wide and it’s inviting. And inviting at a front door means friendly. It’s nice. Looks like a boardwalk. Just like you said, a beach boardwalk. Yeah. Now, I’m sure you’ve got a plan, but these look like a pimple on a pumpkin. They’re too tall, too skinny, they don’t match what we’ve done. That’s right. I’ve got it taken care of. All right. So, the plan is what we’re going to do is bring it out to about this width. Clad it down below so we get that nice white accent going through. If we put tiles on top, you can do that green thing that you do so well. Green thing. Plant it out on top. It’s a onewoman, one man job. So, I’ll hold you screw square. That’s better. [Music] Laughing. I’m getting there. We’re in. See, it’s not going anywhere now. Team work. Yeah. So, like concrete sheet over the top of this if you want to hold. Yeah, absolutely. So, should we concrete it? You know how to do that. I’ve seen you do that on better homes and gardens. There you go. I’ll get the hose. Don’t breathe it in. [Music] Wash that stuff into there. Jeez, he’s really turned that on, didn’t he? Well, I don’t want to go crazy. No, turn on. Cuz you’re bossy, aren’t you? Go crazy. No, I don’t want to go too crazy. I want to do it properly. No, I want to do it properly. I need lots of water. You realize we’re sounding like an old married couple. I think what’s great about this is it’s a really good cosmetic makeover. can actually do this if you’ve got something like a little ugly cliff like this to the side of your door. Just a bit of cement sheeting over the top just held in place by some timber gives it a whole new look. It’s all about proportion, isn’t it, Jace? It is. This will give it scale. Okay. So, we just cut that in so that it fits into that column. So, what this will do is just neaten off the edge here. Just a little bit of aluminum angle just to cover up where the two surfaces meet. It’s pretty ugly. So, as a quick cover up, then we can clad over the top and the tile goes on there. So, we’re going to put matching boards across the front of this just like the picket and up here on the top. So, I need about 20 mil at the front. Okay. If you could finish off the pickets on this plant. Sure. Just going to get started on this one. All right. Okay. Nice. [Music] Just stitch up. Why didn’t I think of it? [Music] For most families, the front door usually ends up the dumping ground for shoes and coats and hats and all sorts of other bits and pieces. So, when you’re doing a makeover, there is no reason at all why you can’t make it pretty as well as practical. I want to create something in our entry hall where they can sit down, they can put the shoes away. So, to make life easy, I’ve started with one of these. It’s a flat pack cube cabinet. You can buy these from Bunnings. And to dress it up and give it a little bit of reinforcement, I’m using pine. I’ve already stained it so it ties in with our color scheme. Got a couple of pieces, one on either end, one across the top and the bottom, so it’s clad uniformly all the way around. [Music] Just one more thing I want to add to this unit and that is some lockable caster wheels. That way, it’s really practical. When there are leaves underneath, you can simply unlock the wheels and draw it out and give it a good sweep. [Music] How would you like to build a little love seed or bench for the price of exactly nothing? Well, with the off cuts I’ve got from the boardwalk, I’ve laminated them together by using bugles. Now, I’ve got my two screws here. So, when I put the next one on, I’ll put my two screws here. I create two of them. This one here is pre-stained and ready to go. And then a 3 m sleeper cut in half, laid over the top. [Music] Screw the top down and voila, you got a beautiful little bench. And this one works particularly well in a front yard cuz it’s that heavy, no one’s going to pinch it. [Music] Join me. How good’s that? The furniture matches the boardwalk. Well, that’s the shoes tidied up. Now for the coats and hats. Honestly, you can make something as simple as a shelf. It just needs to be a right angle out of two pieces of pine. One there just joined. And you can add some metal hooks all the way along. If you want to make it a bit fancier, just keep building it up. Get a slightly narrower piece of pine. That gives it some shape. If you like a bit of curve, you can get these moldings in different shapes. This one’s called a scocher. Pop that in there. You could even add one of these little decorative beading trims. Really, it’s up to you. You can just keep layering them. Once it’s painted, it’ll look very fancy and just like one you buy in the shops. For this front of house makeover, the homeowners were keen on a coastal look. So, I’m going to put in some plants that look like they belong at the beach. Then, we’re just about ready to show Steuart Mill. Now, it might sound funny because the trees got all this surface around the side, but there is definitely a face to most plants, and it’s just the way it looks the best. It might be in the nursery where it was on the edge and it got a little bit more sun than everyone else and it’s just it’s good-looking side. You know how models who’ve got the one look. Well, this trees look is that. And so I’ve got it facing the most common spot in the garden where you’re going to view it from and that’s the gate when you’re walking in. That’s a good looking tree. She’s impressed. So, we’re going for a beach theme. We’ve got the sand already, the boardwalk. All we need is the plants and the water. Now, we’ve got lots of grasses here because when you’re at the beach or along the coast, you see lots of bank binding grasses. We got Lamandra. And then as far as the plants go, coastal rosemary, you can shape that up in balls or you can let it free form. It’ll max out at about 1.5 m. So, in a small space like this, give it a haircut a couple of times a year and keep it compact. And woolly bush. If you’ve ever in a nursery and you see a woolly bush, go and touch it because it’s really soft like the tail of a kitten. Touch it. Soft like the tail of a kitten. Woo. [Music] and a couple of storebought pots with a poa and a dicondra silver falls over the edge really frame the front door. Mel and Stu are so lucky to have this little porch as an entryway. It’s covered. It’s sheltered and the perfect place for a coat and hat rack. So, Greg’s just going to hold this in position. We’ve leveled it up so we know where we’re going. We put some wall fixings in. This is going to be very strong bubbles in the middle. Perfect. Good work. Here is just marked up on either side of that fixing with my hook. That way it’ll disguise the hole. So, one less hole to fill. [Music] I love that. That’s a great little coat rack. Combined with a bench seat underneath with plenty of storage, what was once a dark, pokey little porch now looks bright and inviting. [Applause] Here they come. Oh my gosh. [Music] That’s your house. Welcome home. Oh my gosh. Love it. Absolutely amazing. It’s the same place. Yeah. Does it remind you of the beach coast? It does. So coastal. Come in. Enjoy. Oh wow. Nice wide path. Walk hand in hand into the front door now rather than behind each other. Fantastic. True. Beautiful. I just love the colors. Um, and I love the the grays. Like, I absolutely love the gray. I think this just proves the power of paint and just a few little clever disguises. You can work with what you have and it actually looks beautiful. I think it has character now. I’m thrilled. I love it. I’m moving in. Yeah, it looks amazing. So, you’ve got this nice entrance way now. And in there, we’ve actually got storage. You can hang your coats and your hats in there. So, it’s actually a useful area as well. Doubles as a cell. You can lock them in there when they’re lock them in there if you want. [Music] I wouldn’t call it a lawn before, but what you had before, you would have spent more time on it and got no result. Where with this, if you spend 5 minutes on it once a month, it’s going to look great. Amazing. Happy. Yeah, very happy. Well done, guys. Amazing. Thank you. Even better now. [Applause] We know that England is famous for its beautiful homes and gardens, but here in the heart of Hamampshire, there is one that really stands out as being very special. It’s the beautiful creation of, wouldn’t you know it, an Aussie who’s taken on the Brits at their own game. Designed magically so by none other than Marilyn Abbott. And we’re about to say good day. Come on. [Music] West Greenhouse is tucked away in the Hampshire countryside about a 70 km drive from the west of London. And over the past 26 years, Mary Lynn has lovingly restored the place, a once ruined 1720 Georgian Mana House along with its overgrown 4 hectare garden and brought it all back to life. Hello. Hello, Graeme. How are you? Well, how are you? It’s a long time. It is Chelsea what? Three years ago. Three years ago. Yeah. In fact, I’ve known Mary Lynn for much longer than that. And of course, it’s been even longer still that we’ve all been admiring Mary Lynn’s fabulous gardening. This is a wonderful group of shades. Is this where it started? Absolutely. When the day I met Julia’s rose is the day I thought, I’m going to build a whole garden. How’s this for a blast from the past, Marilyn and I in 1999 at her stunning Kennet Green Garden in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. Sort of coffee cappuccino, don’t you think? But always one for a new challenge. Nine years ago, she moved to the UK full-time to devote all her energies into West Green. The climbing rose was Alchemist, which is an old rose. And at the bottom was supposed to be Buff Beauty, but the Buff Beauties kind of decided it’s not a shrub rose, and it’s climbed up amongst us. This is a gorgeous combination. Yes, it’s worked very well. And Buff Beauty, who’d have thought? This is one of the big things for me when I came here, the the dark red of the Hampshire brick, which a lot of Australians will kind of talk think about because we’ve got dark red brick everywhere at home. Um, and these colors really light up the bricks. Yeah. This is very familiar. Is this where you have your opera concerts? That’s right. Yes. This is what we call the green theater. Ever the innovator, Mary Lynn was once the marketing manager of the Sydney Opera House, now stages summer operas and concerts right in her own backyard. Oh, this is familiar. This is where our groups have their morning tea and lunches here. Absolutely. It’s all pretty much a ruin when you took it over. Yes, it was. The IRA had been looking for Mrs. stature and they thought she was staying here and had bombed the house and the h house then was left empty for quite a number of years. So I basically started from a ruin. Um we had to rebuild most of the walls because this wall here does go back to the 1770s. Goodness. So there was a a big cleanup large reconstruction and then after 8 years of of rebuilding and of course make putting the soils back we then could start planting. And it’s 25 years. I’m nearly finished, but not quite. Oh, I don’t think a gardener ever finishes. I don’t think you’ll ever finish. Oh, no. [Music] The largest of Mary Lynn’s garden rooms is the ward garden. A beautiful blend of formal and informal plantings packed with a profusion of stunning roses and other blooms. And mixed in amongst all this exuberant planting and color are some of the signature favorites. I remember from Kenneth Bren you mixed flowers and vegetables together then. Yes, I did. I’ve been absolutely hooked on that idea for a long long time. Exactly. You know the traditional potter and I don’t know I just like it so I do it. But this isn’t any ordinary pottager or kitchen garden. Mary Lynn’s is quite grand. It’s in keeping with the heritage of her 18th century mana house. These little stepover apples. It’s a great way to grow them. [Music] Goodness. Why? Gila. Yes. It’s called Bristol Red. It’s a It’s wonderful, isn’t it? On the on standard. On standard. Look at this glorious thing. I know. It’s um It’s a great rose, isn’t it? David Austin. Yeah. And I think it’s Crown Princess Margarita, but I’m not going to swear to it. Um, look at the color. It’s just beautiful. This is your best year ever. Absolutely. I I think it was the extreme cold, but the roses have been phenomenal, and I think that’s 90% of the reason I’m here in England. It’s a matter of wanting to grow plants I couldn’t grow at home. Yeah. From her last flouncy flowery borders to her restrained Italian 8 garden rooms. West Green combines classical style with contemporary design in unique ways. And behind every wall, there’s something new to discover. The Alice garden still has a bit of wonderland feel to it because Marilyn has always loved her topi. Oh, that’s Alice’s teapot there. I think uh in Australia and here in England and in this little garden there’s quite a lot of them. A sunken garden with a checkerboard pattern on the lower level and then it’s surrounded by a whole host of clipped bucks. There are balls, spheres, spirals and there’s even some cloud pruning. There is a lot of green, but there’s splashes of red, not only in the furniture because this is where people come come, visitors come and have a a cup of tea or a light lunch. And there’s picking up that red in the roses and that red really lifts the green. It’s just a lovely calming place to be. [Music] Beyond the garden walls, the scene is very different. The landscape opens up into a big parkland look. framed with two beautiful uh variegated dogwood trees looking through to the lake. In fact, the lake is quite extensive with a beautiful rusty bridge. It’s just open with glorious trees. Mary Lynn has always been a great traveler all her life and she would see different gardens around the world. Bring back those ideas and create them either in Australia but now here in England. This one here is inspired by Middle Eastern gardens. And it’s called the Paradise Garden. [Music] Very minimalistic but very formal in its design which you can see from the circles and the squares and the rectangles. The trees growing in the center of the circles are in fact crab apples. The thing I love about this garden, not only its simplicity, but the backdrop is a a beautiful dark green wall of you, the taxis tree, and a fabulous copus of silver birch. It’s just so dramatic, very simple, very pleasant place to be in. Botanic gardens in Australia for some years have been turning their glass houses into display houses. Well, very few private owners do it, but Maryland has certainly done it here at West Greenhouse. Filled with beautiful flowers. If you come here, you must not miss this great attraction. Look at these hippies. This is a double green. Sometimes these are sold as amorillas today. These ones here are some of the most modern varieties in the world. Look at that white one with a little red edge. And of course, the shade is being provided by a fruing grape. You can see the the fruit hanging down here ready for an autumn harvest. There are actually three glass houses here. The next one beyond is more of an open area for functions. Again, filled with all the seasonal bulb displays. The third house is actually the working glass house where the real action happens. Any plants that are hard to get, they propagate them from cutings, grow some from seed. But others, which we can all do, it’s a good tip, they buy small plants, little tube stock we call them, and then you grow them on into much larger plants and then pop them into the garden when they’re semi mature and then you can just watch them grow. That’s a really good thing that we could all try at home. You save a lot of money, but still get a fabulous display in your garden. Well, I’ve loved coming back again to West Green to see Mary Lynn, a true gardening legend who continues to inspire us all. Your energy never ceases to amaze me. I’m in awe of your uh skills. Do you miss home? You miss Australia? Oh, of course I miss Australia. I miss it enormously. I was born there. I’m a fifth generation Australian. Um but I think I came to England because of plants. There were things that I couldn’t grow we just couldn’t have in Australia and I guess the operative word is it was greed to grow plants that I couldn’t do. It’s it life’s been a wonderful journey for me. Well, we wish you all the very best for the future. Thank you and thank you very much for remembering me. My pleasure, sweetheart. [Music] Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can spark the biggest ideas. And today I’m going to be channeling my inner maggyver and turning the humble clothes peg into a bench seat that everyone will love to use. It’s been a while. [Music] And it all starts with some treated pine sleepers. Now, the look I’m going for is the standard peg. And the first thing I need to do is start cutting the shape. [Music] Now, when you’re working with sleepers like this, they’re 100 mil thick, 200 mil wide. Obviously, your power saw isn’t going to go through in one run. So, you need to flip it over and cut it again. So, for this, it’s 100 mil wide. I’ve set my power saw to 55 mil depth, which means it will just overlap in the center and cut through. For this peg, it’s going to have two sides just like your standard peg, a top and a bottom. I’m starting down one end and working my way down. So, I’ve got this end cut now. You can see the V here. The next part is to get this notch done in the middle. Right, moving down the peg, we can see the next part is to make the hole for the spring, but also you can see that the peg goes down on an angle. This is going to be a seat. We don’t want anyone falling off. So, we’re going to square it up, which means we create a gap down the end to do that. So, I’ve got an offcut of marine ply that I’m going to put in between the two sleepers, which will give us the gap down the bottom, but also become the center point for our hole. Now, this hole is 150 mil, so it’s going to have a lot of friction. You just want to make sure that you get yourself in a comfortable position and hold the drill nice and firm. [Music] How cool is this? You could use this one when it’s tilted up on edge as a garden ornament, but that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to use it as a bench seat, and 100 mil really isn’t enough to sit on. So, what I’m going to do is cut out another two sleepers for the center. So, it’s four sleepers wide. The only difference is the two center sleepers won’t have the hole in the center cuz you’re never going to see them. That’s all the pieces cut. It’s time to put this together. For that, I’m going to be gluing and screwing it. I’m using 175 mil bugles. I’ve pre-drilled all my holes, but the tip is here to start with this one on the bottom and then work your way up. That way you only end up seeing fixings on one side and not on the other. Now, if you remember when I drilled the holes, I used a marine pipe packer and that’s what I’m putting on now. But it’s to the correct size. So, I’ve just cut it down so there’s a 30 mil shadow line all the way through. That way, when our two pegs are together, it gives us a nice seamless line. As you can see, there’s a bit of weight in these babies. It’s going to be the heaviest bench that you’ve ever seen. Now, before I bring these two sides together and add some color to this bench seat, you’ll see that there’s a check out on the top of this peg, and that’s where the spring sits. And then it goes down and cores around in our hole. And that’s exactly what I’ve just marked out here. I’ll use a power saw to make a sequence of cuts and a chisel to clean it out. And to finish off our peg, I’m just coating it with an ebony stain. It’s nice and dark. It’s really going to define the peg look, but also hide this treated pine color. [Music] I’ll tell you what, that’s looking pretty good. How good is this? It’s a bench seat if I’ve ever seen one. And for the spring, I’m just using some flexible 20 mil conjuit. I’m going to start by wrapping it around in our hole. And then I’ll have the straight bit coming up and folding down across our checkout. Wherever this conduit is straight, I am putting some 12 mil Dell inside. And then I’ll use some flathead screws to hold it in place. [Music] Now, before I finish off this spring and lay it into our checkout, I still need to attach these two pieces together because if someone sits here, you can see it’s just going to open up the peg and they’ll fall over. It’ll be a funny trick, but it won’t be safe. So, I’ve got some big 300 bugles. I’m going to put them through this checkout first, which means by the time I put our spring over it, you hide the fixes. [Music] This giant peg bench seat is a work of art. I think it would look great in anyone’s house. You definitely won’t be left hung out to dry next time your friends are invited over. [Music]