a bedtime story

for a long time, after we got our bed, i wanted a bench to sit at the foot.

you know, a place to put our junk neatly stack the throw pillows each night…rather than on the floor—where the dog figured we were making her a nice bed each night.

but i couldn’t find the right thing, and i wasn’t really willing to spend the money on, well frankly, anything.

fortunately one day i spied this beauty sitting out at the curb waiting for the trash truck:


(staging done courtesy of little bear. pictures taken when our lawnmower was on strike, apparently)

can you imagine someone throwing this away???
I KNOW, RIGHT??

the gorgeously dog chewed distressed corners…



but it had good bones—it was solid and sturdy and well made. the lines and curves match the curves of my bed frame. i could see the potential.

so i brought it home and got to work.
first i marked a line on either side and trimmed both edges with a jigsaw to narrow it down from “table” width to “bench” width (an arbitrary size i decided on in my head)


 

i may or may not have sung “gettin’ jiggy wit’ it” the entire time
nah nah nah nah na nah nah...nah nah nah nah na nah



it got a little wonky on the right side there because my jigsaw blade broke halfway through. not cool.

but that was really the hardest part of the whole thing.

unfortunately my computer apparently ate all the photos from this point forward. but it’s pretty much self-explanatory.

i gave it a good wipe down, and then a couple coats of black spray paint. the chewed raw-er edges needed a little bit extra…

i went with a simple textured white fabric that i got at work (it was a leftover piece from another job), and had googiedaddy cut me a nice dense piece of 2” foam for the top.

here’s the only other photo i could find:


it’s a sandwich: towel (to protect floor/fabric), fabric, foam, table/bench.

i pulled and stapled the fabric tightly to the underside of the bench.

boom. done. one bench.

total cost: $0.
(table was trash-picked, i had the spray paint, got the foam and fabric at work)



up close you can see the imperfections in how i stapled it. i’m not entirely sure that i’m crazy about the plain white fabric, so i’m really kind of considering it temporary at this point.

i also should have put a layer of dacron between the foam and fabric to soften it up a bit more, and hide some more of the wonky-ness in my cutting.




in general though i love the look it adds to the bed & bedroom. the shelf is great for storing books and junk, although some nice baskets underneath to make it look neater wouldn’t hurt… a momma’s work is never done :)



it’s a great spot for the pillows at night, and a great stepstool for little bear to climb up on the bed (which is insanely high in case you can’t tell from the photos…i’m approaching the point in my pregnancy where i need a stepstool to get in the bed too)

and my favorite function of all? a place for googiedaddy to sit and put on his socks and shoes in the morning! instead of sitting on the bed and shaking it like crazy!! srsly! a momma’s gotta get her beauty rest, ya know?

i posted about my trellis wall stencil here
and my bedroom pillows here and here
and the nightstand here

i'm linking up here: