coffee table transformed into a bench.

Hey, hey, hey!

I'm in pretty good spirits right now. It could be the yummy pull apart pizza bread I just had (left overs from New Years eve) :) or it could be the fact that last night I tackled a project that's been sitting around in our cramped office for a year awaiting transformation. Probably both.

I've been wanting a hallway bench for quite some time, but could never find something that I liked that was in my price range (or at least the range I would like to pay). So what better way to get it than make it yourself?!

I took this $10 coffee table in all of it's scratched up glory (sigh, that picture makes my heart ache for summer), and gave it a couple of coats of this:

I have been searching for a good fabric that had a pattern (much to my husband's disdain. He's not one for anything 'wild', but prefers things simple n' plain), and found one I liked one here for $8.98/yd. I purchased 3 yards, which was plenty.

the great thing about the fabric was that it is stain & water resistant and is made for indoor or outdoor use; perfect for a bench to have outer gear thrown on it!

I slowly started collecting the materials for the bench which included:

• three 18"x18"x3" foam cushion pads from Wal-mart @ $6 a piece - a great price for 3 inch foam! 
• one 45"x 60" Craft batting (@ $5.99, but received as a gift from my thoughtful MIL)
• a staple gun (I forget the price, but it was bought with a 50% off coupon)
• an MDF board cut to size (for free) from Home Depot (under $10), which was measured to exact size as the top of the coffee table

 I laid the materials face down on the ground

and duct taped the cushions together 

(it was flimsy, but after everything is stapled together, it would be secure)

"really? duct tape?" 

 When all three pieces were taped together, it was longer than the MDF board, so I just eyed about an inch & used my handy new carve & serve knife from my MIL... it worked like a charm :)

 hootchie hoops & a carving knife? don't mess! :)

 this is what it looked like after it was cut. After I eyed the length of the material, I cut off the excess & carefully piled everything in place.

I realized that because the 3-inch foam perfectly fit along the edges of the coffee table, I spread out the batting (it made for softer edges after the material covered the seat).

with my husband's help (that material needed some MAJOR pullage around the corners to get it taut & stapled in place), we started with the corners, and stapled our way around the edges (we found that the sides didn't need to be as tight as the edges because it caused the seat to have lumps in between staples). We also made sure that the pattern was straight with every section we stapled.

trim off the excess fabric on the corners & you have your cushion!

 I realized that a bit of the edges of the table showed when the cushion was in place, 

so... in -12 degree weather, I spray painted the edges (the paint surprisingly didn't bubble or react to the weather)!

with heavy duty deck nails (that sucka ain't goin' anywhere!) we nailed the cushion in place.

 et voila~

With our bench finished, we saw in our mind's eye the many uses...

 a time-out bench for future kiddies? ;)

 a reading corner? (tray seen here)

but we decided the entryway could use a comfortable seat for those hard-to-put-on shoes.

We're loving the new bench & I can't believe how easy it was to make
 (once I got it all pulled together!)
aaaand my hubby admitted that it looked really good (considering this pattern was not his usual cup of tea!). :)

2012 is off to a fantastic start!