The Perfect Bench - Recovering it!

I'm soooo close to finishing my room!!  

Remember when we started this room? I said I wanted a bench at the end of our bed.  

(Well, I did say that here!)

 I started looking at all my usual places like DI, the Restore, and Salvation Army. 

 I actually had an old coffee table that I thought about using.  I put it at the end of the bed to live with for awhile, but Les kept scraping his legs on the square corners.  

So I kept looking.  

Then a month or so ago while we were back to school shopping with the kids I found this lovely blue 80's bench at DI for $10!

 It was so well built and comfortable!! 

For ten bucks I had to buy it and drag it home to see if it would work!  

It seemed a little big, but I had visions, like the ones below, dancing through my head. 

 I debated, and by that I mean I lived with this 80's bench for a month or two at the end of my bed and changed my mind about it multiple times every day! 

(Can you say indecisive?)

I loved how comfy it was and I loved how the kids would sit on it and talk with me or read on it while I was getting ready for the day.  

But I just felt like it was too deep and tall!  

Finally I just decided to recover it and hope for the best!! 

 Now I just needed some material.  I did my normal search on line for material, and went to all my local fabric stores.  I found a few things I liked, but nothing I felt I could afford.  Then one day I was at DI looking around and saw a big old box filled with rolls of decor fabric.  

Yeah, at DI!!!  

There were orange, tan, cream, and fairly blah fabrics.  Then I saw this big roll of off white fabric.  It was all taped up so you couldn't see the right side of the fabric.  After getting a corner free I was stunned to find a beautiful navy flocked trellis print.  I immediately tried to get the roll out of the box and into my cart, but it was too heavy.  I did not dare leave such a great find for someone else to take so I just stood there.

  One of my daughters came by, but she wasn't strong enough to help me, so I sent her to get help.  Finally I asked this guy who was another shopper if he could help me get it in my cart.  

He did! 

  Awesome guy!  

About now my daughter arrived with an employee.  

"How much is this?"  I asked. "This roll is not marked,"

 "Um, most of the others are marked $15, so I guess that one is $15."

WHAAAAATTT?????

OK, I kept my cool, but all the way to the cash register and then to my car I felt like a bandit!!! 

 I was ready to be stopped and told that was a steal!!  

(Get it, steal?  LOL)

Alright enough of the cheesy puns, but it was such a super great deal. 

 I think this Ikea commercial is what I really looked like.

OK, back to our post about recovering this bench.

Now I was ready to tackle the deconstruction of my bench.  The legs were covered with fabric; I think this bench once had a skirt on it.  I ripped off all the fabric on the legs which I thought were too tall so I cut off a few inches from each one.  Then I slowly took all the old fabric off the bench one piece at a time, taking lots of pictures as I went.  I'm always careful about this so I can use each old piece as a pattern for the new fabric.  

Once I had the bench all stripped down to the batting I used gel stain on the legs to give them a dark rich look.  

 Like I said, this bench was in super shape so I just left all the supporting foam and stuffing in place.  The new challenge with this piece of furniture was the area below the main cushion.  I had to cut two pieces of the finished fabric and one piece of white cotton (from an old white sheet), and sew them together so they were now one piece.  Then I had to sew it by hand down the seams and through the breaks in the foam and batting.  

(See photo below.) 

 I carefully sewed all the way down one side and pulled the string I was using tight to staple it and it just broke!!!  Then Les just grabbed a piece of the string I was using and pulled on it and it broke!!!  Obviously this wouldn't work!! 

 So I pulled it all out and sewed that seam again with upholstery thread, after Les tested it to see if he could break it of coarse.  Then as I started to staple the thread to the wood it was breaking against the staples!!!! 

 Uggggh!!!

OK, what to use? 

It needed to be thicker and stronger, 

like kite string. 

 It's super strong and I had a whole roll that was kinda tangled.    

Third time's a charm right?  

It worked wonderfully.

Once I got that killer piece attached, I just started stapling pieces on in the reverse order I took them off.  I strongly recommend you take your time to make sure everything lays well before stapling. This bench really only had 5 pieces to attach and took very little time.  Then I added a piece of black fabric to the bottom to finish it off. 
 I had learned on the twin chairs how to assemble cushions with piping, so the cushion was fairly easy too.  
I am ecstatic about how it turned out!!!

What do you think? 

 Here is my whopping $25 bench!!! 

I so love it!  It's so pretty and functional.  

Everyone loves to lay or sit on it!!! 

It really is the perfect bench!

I will show the whole room very, very soon!!!!

Thanks, for stopping by!

I'm linking up:

Met Monday

The Weekly Creative {Link up!}

Home Stories A to Z

Tutorials & Tips Link Party {132}

Flaunt it Friday