My husband loves making furniture. He’s always been fond of woodworking, so he’s always eager to make something wood-related for our home.
Whenever he decides we need a particular piece with custom dimensions or particular features, he starts laying out a plan.
This time he tried to look for a bench with container and, not finding the right size and color, we started making one.
Not just wood, though: we wanted it to be upholstered with leather. There was an empty space in our home entrance just in front of the main door that was the perfect spot to sit down and change shoes, next to the shoe cabinet.
We decided to make the bench ourselves, to match the color of the nearest red and white piece of furniture and to have a container space for blankets and similar stuff.
Click for the finished project detailed photos
Carefully measured pine wood boards were the start of our home-made container bench.
We glued them together to form a box, but my husband added an extra metal reinforcement to each corner using leftover pieces from our home walls: drywall corners. His main concern was the bench to be able to support the weight of two persons.
My part in this was (guess what?) the sanding of the wood. My husband always leaves to me the tasks like this that require patience: I enjoy this kind of work, it relaxes me. Â
My husband, then, gave a first layer of paint to the inside of the container.We didn’t need to paint the outside, since we wanted to cover it with upholstery. Painting the inside first and letting it dry completely was paramount not to leave paint traces on the leather cover.
After finishing the construction of the main container, we began preparing the bench for the upholstery: a thin foam pillow covered with faux leather.
We knew the upholstery process was for sure the hardest part, so we carefully planned it and looked for the help of an expert: my husband’s granny! She worked for years sewing shoes, so she was the most qualified helper we had in the family.
First, my husband glued the foam pillow to the outside of the bench, then we measured it carefully and granny sewed a leather cover for the four sides. She made a “tube” with white leather, the perfect size for the wooden container to fit inside it.
Well, fitting the container inside the leather tube was not easy at all! The size was really tight! Even with carefully taken measures, we had to rip the seams and sew again at least twice to make it fit.
A nice stylish note: we chose to sew with red thread to match the color of the lid, and I love it!
Next step: the lid with its red pillow.
The base of our lid was a wooden board the same size as the bottom of our bench: when placed on top, it made a closed perfect box.
We added upholstery to make it soft and comfortable and covered it all with red faux leather.
The upholstery was not as easy as we thought at the beginning, mainly for the corners. The hardest part was making the suface tight and smooth, without wrinkles. I can say we are overall satisfied.
On the bottom side, we then nailed a wooden board that’s slightly smaller than the inside of the box: this was to avoid the lid slipping off. We decided to make it about 1cm smaller than the box opening on each side: it would have been harder to fit while closing, with a board exactly matching the size of the opening.
With the lid in place, the bench was finished!
It’s not perfect but quite close to the outcome we looked for. Upholstery is not easy, but it’s lot of fun!
What I love of this piece of furniture, are the red seams on the white faux-leather. Also, the lid is quite comfortable: the anti-slip mechanism works great. The lid can’t slip off, but the space to fit it in is enough to open and close quickly.
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