Trying to balance on one foot while putting on or taking off shoes, was a common sight in my home. Depending on each family members’ balance skills, this was at times successful and at other times, unsuccessful. Picture this: a yoga tree pose and then that tree falling completely over like a lumberjack had gotten a hold of it. That’s my family. Also, sitting on the step that goes into the living room, is a pain because that’s when Maggie, Allie and Lily (our canine family) decide to run up for loves. Putting on shoes is difficult when you’ve got three doggie noses in your face.
Tired of the falling tree pose, this lead me to go on the hunt for a bench on Craigslist for several months. I dig mid-century modern furniture with it’s clean lines and the fact that my older relatives had homes furnished in this style while I was growing up. I’d found a cool mid-century bench but was unsure of how it’d look, so by the time I’d made up my mind to make a purchase, it had sold. Well, howdy ho, eBay! I found another mid-century bench with similar dimensions and a great price! I won that baby (doesn’t that make one feel lucky?) and it arrived last week from Wisconsin. Since there are no smokers in my family, we have the nose of bloodhounds for this odor. As I opened up the box, I thought I picked up a faint smell of cigarette smoke. Oh boy. This bad boy needed to be not just recovered, but a whole new cushion was necessary.
However, once I pulled off the 100% naugahyde, the stink went away and the original cushion was in good shape and stink-free. It was either a FedEx driver who was fond of his/her Camels or the person who packaged this bench up. Either way, I was armed and ready to do some re-upholstery work!
With a Phillip’s screwdriver, I removed the metal plates on the underside where the legs attach and then labeled each spot and each bag with the corresponding letter. I placed each plate and it’s screws in a snack sized bag, making sure to keep them together so that when I was done attaching the fabric to the bench, I could match the metal plate with the correct previous placement.
Once I had cut the correct amount of muslin fabric to cover the bottom of the bench, I attached it with a staple gun (see below) and then measured the fabric needed for upholstering the bench and cut that amount.
I used a combo of upholstery nails (first) and the original decorative tacks (second) securing the nails and tacks into place with a hammer. At the shorter end of the bench, there were three folds total. Scissors were used for any loose threads. The metal plates were reattached in their original spots, the legs were screwed on and voila! Bench was completed!
From beginning to end, this took about two hours. Originally, I was going to have this done professionally but after I sent a picture of the original bench to my mom, she thought I could do this easily myself and she was correct! My munchkins now have a comfy place to park their hineys to put on shoes and to take shoes off with out falling over. Sayonara, falling tree pose!
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