Bench Pinterest Project

I, like most red-blooded American women, love me some Pinterest. I could spend hours scrolling through pages of parenting hacks, healthy recipes, and holiday decor. There are just so many options! One of those said options never did leave my head. I had seen it a few times and thought it was such a neat idea. I finally got around to sending it to David who said he thought it was manageable and that he would help me get started. Te he he. Poor kid didn't know what he was getting himself in to. . .

The project was to take an IKEA bookshelf and turn it into a window bench. Easy peasy, right? As is the case with most Pinterest projects, they never quite turn out like they're supposed to. First we headed to IKEA to grab the bench. That part was surprisingly easy aside from the fact that we stupidly went on a Saturday afternoon. I mean, we live 20 minutes from the place and we could have done any time, but we decided to go at the busiest time of the week. Geniuses, we are. 

David has become an IKEA pro so he was able to quickly put it together. The next step was to procure foam padding and fabric to make the seat part of the bench. I snagged that from a local fabric store. What I wasn't expecting was quite how expensive the 1 inch thick foam would be. Oof. I did score with two pillows that were 75% off that I plan on recovering later. You win some, you lose some.

David was kind enough to pick up the plywood from Lowe's for the next part despite saying after putting the shelf together that the rest was up to me. Like I said, poor kid didn't know what he was getting himself in to. . .

With my handy daddy coming in to town to watch Amelia Grace we asked if he could bring his powerful staple gun to help attach the fabric and foam to the board. After we cut down the foam and folded the fabric over the foam and wrapped it around the board he and David made sure I did my part and stapled some of the fabric to the board. I was terrified of that powerful gun, but I did it! 

The next step was to drill the plywood to the bookshelf so that the seat part wouldn't slide off and crush little fingers or toes. This was around the time Amelia Grace was losing it and needed to go to bed, so David and Daddy did this part without me. Though, I have no doubt they would have made me do all the drilling had I been available!

It wasn't a hard project, so much as it was full of lots of little steps. It also added up! We chose to do this to save money on buying our own window bench, but with it all totaled up I think it would have come out even. Oh, well. At least we can say we did it!