Bench Redo

A couple weeks ago I found this bench at the Salvation Army. That particular day they were having a sale- if you bought a piece of furniture and took it that day, you got 30% off. This baby was marked $7.99, and lucky for me, they considered it furniture. I got to take it home for just about $5. 

 

I purchased 2 yards of brown zebra print fabric (WAY too much) from Joann's, a button covering kit, 10 yards of nail head trim (didn't need that much, but that's how it came), and an upholstery needle. I spent approximately $40 on these supplies, but I have many things left over for other projects.

It look me a couple hours to remove the original fabric-- tons of nails, thumb tacks and staples holding that stuff on. 

Once I got that off, I was lucky to discover a rather clean and intact seat. The structure of the seat itself seems to be pretty solid, I was expecting it to be questionable. 

 

It only took about two hours to recover, make the buttons and put them on, and add the nail head trim. These steps were all very easy! I was surprised. Putting the buttons on was probably the most time consuming step. I tried to tuft it a little- it was hard to achieve the level of tufting that I wanted. I think its something I can rework in the future, perhaps with some stronger thread.

The last step was to paint the legs of the bench. I cleaned them first (gross!) and then sanded, and used a dark brown paint with a shiny finish. I am honestly considering painting the legs black now because I don't think the brown is dark enough. The zebra print is brown, and the lighter brown paint makes it look more black.

The last part of the project (save potentially repainting the legs) is to figure out where this beauty is going to go. Franklin and Eleanor are enjoying using it in the living room as an elevated bed, so it may stay there for now. There is also the option if it becoming a foot rest/table in my office (with the chair that I bought with the intention of recovering). Now that I have tried my hand at recovering something, maybe I will attempt the chair!