DIY Bench Pad

I LOVE DIY projects. I never actually find the time to do them. But I have a few closets in this house cram packed with DIY ideas, and supplies. I think I may have two actual things that I've actually done. The lamps in my bedroom. And now this.

The hubs and I bought new bedroom furniture a while ago. We were rockin' out the furniture he had when he was a teen and still living with is parents. The furniture was great quality, but it was super dated. It was too 80's to pull vintage, and too newborn vintage to pull retro. So, into the garage is sleeps. Waiting. For someone. With a creative eye maybe. I'm not going to talk it down too much, one day I'll be selling it and one of you may want it, but change your mind after reading this.. Its unlikely BUT with my luck. Maybe so.

Anyway- So this isn't a DIY blog, otherwise you'd get an update twice a year. ANND I'm not good with measurements. When I make things, I eye ball them. Patterns are hard for me to follow. I did however, measure the top of my trunk to see what size wood I needed. Then off to Lowes to go find some thin plywood. I bought this piece for about $6.00 and they cut it to size for free.
The foam roll was about $19 at Hobby Lobby but I had a 40%off coupon. I found the pre-packaged roll to be cheaper than the stuff they cut for you. I didn't end up using all of it, so I do have some left over to take up more room in my closet to use for another project.

Being the safety conscious person that I am, I used my living room coffee table as my work table. If your wondering about my fabric choice- Before we bought our new furniture the colors in our room were brown and blue. I bought a brown comforter and blue curtains not too long ago so I hated the though of having to get rid of them and starting over. With the new stark white furniture I bought a bright red chair and ottoman for a pop of color. It's really nice. But it came together better in my head. So now I had to search for something to tie these all together. Impossible.. I think not!

I started by laying the wood on top of the padding. Then leaving about 5-6 inches of padding on each side. I stapled the padding to the wood. The staple size will vary depending on the thickness of your padding. If you'd like to know what size I used let me know and I'll find out. I do know that you want to make sure that the staple does not come out completely on the other side. Otherwise, it could make for some painful sittin'.

After the padding was good and stapled on (you'll probably have to trim around the corners so that it doesn't get too thick. I did the corners last.) I laid the board on top of the fabric being mindful of where i wanted the birds on the top of the cushion. I cut the fabric to the size I needed. I probably over-did it but I didn't want to end up falling short!
As with the padding, I stapled the fabric on leaving the corners for last. Once I got to the corners I pulled them pretty tight but not so tight that it cause too many ripples and stapled the life out of them. At this point I was glad that I left extra fabric because I could pull the fabric to the actual board and staple it on that way. It just got too thick to hold a staple around the padded corners. You could probably also switch out for a bigger staple but I only had the one size.

Pardon the mess, I had to do something to keep the kids busy. And on a side note, stapling into padding sounds a lot like what one might think gun shots sound like. Glad to know that after 20+ gunshots were fired.. No neighbors called to complain.. and/or alert the police.

Tah Dah!


Ben give it his "Comfy" seal of approval.

Wow!

Its been a crazy long time since I've posted. I really need to get on doing better. I do think about blogging. Daily really. But I don't. By the time I have the time to blog, I don't have the brain to blog! Vicious circle.

There's been a lot of big things going on in my life. Things that I will definitely be sharing.... When the time is right. For now, we just have to make due with my random thoughts.

Despite all of my efforts my kids have defied me. Laney is walking, and Ben is completely potty trained and wearing 4-5t clothes. You know, speaking of the potty training. I have a lot of friends who have kids that refuse to use public restrooms. They only feel comfortable pottying at home. I envy these people. I will ask Ben a million times to go potty before we leave and he will either go a little or not at all. The second we get to the store he tells me he has to potty. Seriously? That kid, I kid you not, has pooped in EVERY public bathroom that's been available to him. He's also peed in many a parking lot bush. What? Don't judge me. Taking a kid potty with a walking toddler is not fun. Especially when I have a germ problem.

I currently use something like this. (when I remember, normally I forget and kill about a dozen trees in the rain forest by wrapping the toilet seat with toilet paper all while holding a wiggly kiddo and being rushed by a small boy who really, really needs to pee!) <-longest run on sentence ever! I like that its extra long so their pants don't rub on the toilet.


Or I could just rush in the stores restroom really quick and install one of these bad boys. That ought to make him only want to potty at home! Or never want to go on ANY potty ever again. I really need to sit down and caluclate the risks.