DIY Striped Upholstered Bench

Yesterday I shared a few changes I made to our master bedroom. One of those changes was the piano bench that I made into an upholstered stool. And the best part is that I made it for just $5!

I was originally inspired by the $400 Ballard Designs Simone Bench. It's totally awesome...and totally out of my price range.

So, I decided to make my own instead.

The entire project took less than an hour, and was super easy to do. Basically, I saved about $400 (the price of the real bench) by making it myself. Not too bad for an hour with a hammer and a glue gun. 

I started with a basic piano bench that I originally found at a thrift store.

 I purchased 2 yards of fabric (a remnant I was lucky enough to find for a few bucks), 1 box of nailheads, and then used what I had on hand: hotglue, glue gun, hammer, scissors, and pillow stuffing.
You can invest in foam padding if you want, but I have tons of extra accent pillow inserts and just used the stuffing from those as a cheap alternative to foam.

The first thing you'll want to do is arrange and secure your fabric to your bench. Line up your fabric how you want it and then secure the fabric to two of the bench legs. Use two nailheads, one on each of the two legs. 

  

Once the fabric is secured, work on making the corners for both legs on this side. To make a neat corner, hotglue the fabric onto the leg and fold over the top part. 

Once it's folded neatly, and you can clearly see how much fabric you need, cut the fabric. Leave enough to fold about an inch of it under.

Next, fold it under and make it even with the part of the fabric that's already secured.

Next, secure the corner with two more nailheads, one directly on the corner, and one near the edge of the leg.

Next, add some nailheads to only ONE of the long sides, and both ends. 

You'll fill in your nailhead trim later. For now, you'll just want to add enough to secure the fabric in place. That way, if you mess up, you won't have to pry up a million nails.
At this point, your bench should be secured on 3 sides, with one side still open.
TIME TO STUFF!
I used the stuffing from two pillows for my bench cushion. You can make it as fluffy/unfluffy as you want.



I like to use pillow stuffing for my upholstery. (It's all from new pillows though. Don't use old pillow stuffing. That's just gross, and a dust-mite nightmare.)  It's really easy to push it into all of the corners and it makes the cushion really comfy. You have to work it a little bit to get it even, but I'm up for the challenge if it means saving $50 on foam. 

Once your bench is fully stuffed, pull the fabric tight and start securing with nailheads. If you're using upholstery fabric, it should be heavy enough that when it's pulled tight, your stuffing looks pretty even. If it's lumpy, rework it or pull your fabric tighter. Complete the remaining two corners just like you did with the other ones. Now fill in the rest of your nailheads. You can use as many nailheads as you'd like. I chose to space them about 1.5'' apart. To make the fabric super secure and finished looking, I also hotglued the fabric around all the edges.

It's not perfect, and as with every DIY project, it requires a little trial and error. However, for $5 and an hour's time, I think it looks great in our bedroom!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! If you want to see where this little bench ended up eventually (in one of my favorite areas of the house!) go here.

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