Home and Family: Upholstered Bench

Hey all! I know I've sort of fell of the face of the blogosphere for a while, but that doesn't mean I've stopped DIYing. I have a bunch of projects to share with you, it's just taken me a while to get my act together. Here's one of the projects I recently completed for my sister.

My brother's next-door neighbor was giving away this bench from her grandmother for free and my sister quickly snatched it up. She wanted something to put at the foot of her bed in her new house and this was perfect because she knew she had ~~someone~~ me to fix it up.

As you can tell, it had definitely seen better days, but it has great lines and I love the little key hole detail.

I did a little research when I saw the manufacturer's label on the inside of the lid. It turns out that the company was started in 1907 and was the first company in the US to manufacture cedar chests. How cool!

My sister and I went to JoAnn and picked out this gorgeous fabric. (Unfortunately, I gave her the rest of what I didn't use so I don't know the name offhand.)

I took the lid off the chest and with some 2" foam and batting, I turned it into a comfortable spot to sit down and put your shoes on every morning.

There are a bazillion upholstery tutorials around so here's just a quick rundown: Lay the fabric upside down, then batting, then foam, then bench seat upside down. First staple the batting, pulling tight and then staple the fabric, making sure there are no wrinkles or too-tight areas.

Also, make sure to cut around where you need to screw the bench seat back into the base.

This is what it should look like when you're finished:

And flipped over:

The next step was to work on the base. I used my new orbital sander (thanks Dad!) and it was ah-ma-zing. Never will I go back to sanding by hand!

Then I used some tinted primer (left over from this project) and gave it two thin coats. I didn't want any of the wood to bleed through.

I brought the fabric to Home Depot and had them color match the gray in the fabric and they really did an amazing job. Two coats of paint later and it was done!

My sister really wanted their family initial on the front so I asked a friend of mine who does vinyl decals to whip something up for her. I measured the center of the bench and marked it off with Frog tape to make sure that I knew exactly where to place the letter.

It took a couple minutes for me to figure out the best way to apply it since I had never worked with vinyl before, but once I figured it out it went on very easily. (Hint: do not remove the entire thing from the backing at once - do it in sections!)