We had three cast off dining room chairs that had lost their luster long ago. Their bums were sagging and needed more than just a nip tuck. An upholstery lift wasn’t going to cut it with these babies. There was nothing worth saving except for the sturdy wooden frames.
Good frames that they were, made them quite the perfect candidates to upcycle into an upholstered bench. I painted each their own happy hue in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (Emilie, Florence & Duck Egg) to complement the recurring aqua blue color scheme in our home.
We headed straight to Lowe’s for lumber. This was the easy part. We selected a piece of plywood and had the fine folks at Lowe’s cut it free in store. Did you know Lowe’s offers this service? They’re pretty flexible on how many cuts they’ll do too. We had selected the length and width we wanted the bench to be prior to our trip to the store.
We based this off of the trio of chairs and their seat width. It was easiest to then take the wood home and measure the notches that needed to be cut between each chair back. Ryan made these detail cuts and rounded the corners as well.
Not only does Lowe’s cut lumber but they’ll also cut mini blinds, pipe, rope and chain. And this is news to me, Lowe’s also offers FREE pipe threading and cutting for any size galvanized or black iron pipe. Say what! A Do It Yourselfer’s dream. Lowe’s is seriously full of easy solutions for your projects.
Check out this six second Lowe’s video that will pretty much change your life. Trust me.
Being a visual person, I love the no words simplicity of their new animated video series on Vine. I definitely learned a few new tricks. The stripped screw solution is genius! Lowe’s has several more simple, creative and life changing improvement videos like this on Vine. Check them out! I can’t believe I never thought of the coffee filter one. #lowesfixinsix Holler!
Yes, I just hollered…back to the bench at hand.
The seat needed to be firm but plush. Somewhere to linger longer so we picked up two-inch thick foam cushioning. Using the neatly cut lumber as a template, I traced the shape.
Here’s another tip for you that I’ve learned along the way: Ready for it? A quick and easy way to cut foam cushion is with none other than your electric knife. The same knife you carve the turkey with. So easy.
Next comes the fluffing. This is where you wrap the seat cushion with poylfill.
No more saggy seat. This bench is looking firm and inviting.
The final step was the upholstery. Instead of going with some sparkly new fabric, I obviously opted for two dingy, old seed sacks. I’ve been holding onto these waiting for just the right project. Their time had come, my friends.
The trickiest part of this entire bench building business for us was sewing. Yes, sewing a straight line. Now you stellar seamstresses out there may find this comical but firing up the actual sewing machine was our biggest challenge. No joke.
But my husband came to the rescue with a triple stitch combining both grain sacks to make one piece of fabric wide enough to cover the entire seat.
We embraced all the wear and tear in both the fabric and chairs and are pretty excited with how the upcycled bench turned out. Funny enough the only new materials used are in innards.
It complements the well-loved and repurposed vibe that is growing in the beach house kitchen.
This is a view into the eating nook as it is today with our vintage enamel table. The roman shades are also a new addition.
The bench adds lots of extra seating for visitors at our kitchen table. It faces the galley that we have been working on updating as I posted about last week.
Some other areas I hope to update are the walls, laminate floor and lighting. I think I got my point across last week about my lack of interest in laminate and desire to resurface all of it within a 30 mile radius. But all in due time. We seem to be working on this space upside down or inside out…details first. It works for us!
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Lowe’s. However, all opinions and projects are my own. And we really do think Lowe’s is awesome and their new videos are life changing.
Filed under: home Tagged: annie sloan chalk paint, before and after, diy, furniture, kitchen, sewing, tips, trash to treasure, tutorial, upholstering, upholstery
