Making a window seat for the library.

It's been a joy to go through my parent's old furniture stash and see what items might just work in our new place. It's good for both of us as I get free furniture to fix up and they get to declutter and have more space. One particular item that caught my eye was a chest that was in great condition but not very attractive. It was just the right height and width to fit underneath the window in the library and seemed like a good cheap way to get us a window seat. I love giving life to old things and finding cheap alternatives for finishing off the room.

before

It was an easy choice to paint the chest white as I wanted it to match my white painted bookshelf. The chest needed a sand down and a coat of primer, before being given two coats of white.Once it was painted white, the next challenge was finding the right materials to change the chest into a window seat. My goal was to get make a nice chair using materials that were comfortable and didn't cost too much.

After looking around at different fabrics I settled on a green gingham print which would go nicely with the reupholstered baroque chair that was already in the library. I usually always go for neutral colours but I'm really getting into different shades of green lately and fell for the fabric (which using a voucher was only $1.30). Foam is never that cheap so I stretched the budget and bought a big piece that fit the top and was about 10cm high. Hopefully I will get lots of use from this seat! Then I cut some old mdf, from a stash in the shed, to the size of the bench top and started the upholstery process.

Cut the fabric to size leaving around 10cm on each edge to staple down. Line the fabric up straight (easier with non gingham print fabric). Then I used a staple gun to staple down the top longest sides. 

Corners are always the trickiest and I'm not perfect at it but I've included an underneath photo to show how I decided to do the corners.

To finish off I put the upholstered bench seat on top of the chest and now I have a new seat. This room is starting to feel a bit more purposeful and like it will actually get some use.  Now four people can sit in the room :) I'm no pro upholsterer but this seat is the perfect size for on top of the chest and looks neat and nice. I would show a whole room photo but we are currently painting the walls (from a hideous shade of dark pink) so the room is not in a photo worthy state- but hopefully will be soon!

Still to do in this room:
- paint walls and ceiling white
-find a lounge or larger item of seating
-hang up some artwork
- find a bigger bookcase for the other side of the chest? (one day I'd love to have built ins but for now this girl is gonna dream).

Lisa x