Benches & Book Nooks

So, one of the accomplishments I alluded to in my last post is this here reading corner:

or "book nook" as we like to refer to it (also the name of a favorite little used book store of Ryan's down the road).  I love the idea of forward facing bookshelves.  Especially for little ones...they get to judge the books by their covers instead of those boring, wordy spines!  We almost situated this in an alcove in the family room but Ryan decided that a window would make this bitty spot even more enticing and he's right.  The shelves are actually picture ledges from IKEA and they're a bit shorter than I wanted.  The longer version was too long for the wall and these shorter ones won't fit side by side.  I'm thinking I may add one more layer on top--perhaps move the bottom one above the top one and get a longer ledge and cut it to fit the wall??  Thinking out loud.  Anyway, M's loving it no matter the length of the shelves.  We hung them the other day while visiting with our friend Zack and I couldn't wait for Molly to get up from her nap for the surprise reveal:

 She loves sliding the books back and forth to make her selection and her favorite part of course is the fact that she can turn the light on and off by herself!!!  I thought she'd just stand there and turn it on and off incessantly but surprisingly once or twice (or thrice) is good enough fun;):

Today, I changed up the seating a bit in the ol' nook and broke out this baby bench:

I can't remember if this was a pre or post baby purchase (I think it was pre) but it was $5 and looked like this when I bought it (from my favorite store, The Classy Flea):

Normally I'm into the "distressed" look but not this one.  So way back then I sanded it down and took all the paint off and then sat it on our porch (at the old house) as a pollen-slash-spider collector.  Yesterday I declared it was time and I took it outside, washed it off, and hit it with some spray paint in my favorite shade of green.  I like it.  There are a few cracks and crevices that need some caulk and another pass with the can but overall I like it.  And then Ryan said "what are you going to paint on it?".  What do you mean?  "Well I just assumed that you were going to paint flowers or something on it".  So now that's got me thinking...should I leave it as is and maybe add a fun made-to-fit cushion?  Or paint some folk-arty embellishments on it?  Ugh.  I don't know now...  

Making her selection:

Reading to owl:

One thing about the bench, it makes getting the books up top easier more dangerous:

 Here she is singing "hush little baby" to owl.  I just want to eat those feet!:

 The bench wasn't the only thing I painted yesterday:

Molly's first nail polish!  I actually bought this color right after Molly got her last cast so I could paint her toes to match but it never happened.  I'm loving the two new paint jobs together though:

So there's our book nook and a tale of two seats.  I like to shift things around so I'm almost certain that beneath this window is the first of many homes for our new green fellow.  So many fun recent pictures to share...maybe I'll be back to post again today.