The Three Chair Bench

In my wanderings on Pinterest, I have come across several examples of benches that people made out of dining chairs.  There have been a few that I really liked, and so, a few months ago, I decided to try my hand at making one.

I started off with 6 chairs that I had found in the alley.  Three were complete, and three had decorative pieces missing.  So, I used the three that were complete.

I had originally planned on painting them white, and using them for our dining chairs, but had changed my mind.

I kept two chairs intact, and took the front and side pieces off of the third.  I then glued the back piece to the center of the whole chairs, using gorilla glue and tape.  While this dried, I screwed three wood screws into each of the bottom, center legs.  Unfortunately, this was pre-blogging days, so I didn’t take a lot of photos during the process.

I then cut down a scrap piece of the center chair to use as a brace for the center, front.  I attached this using L brackets on the inside of the bench.  I then cut pieces of plywood to make the new seat and attached arms that I salvaged from another chair.

The wood was then covered with batting and upholstered with white fabric.  I didn’t like this look, so I made a slipcover out of a Ralph Lauren sheet.

At this point, I got tired of working on the bench, and put it in our storage shed.  Fast forward to this weekend.  I got the bench out of storage and decided that it would look great as extra seating in our living room.  I didn’t want to use the slipcover on it (as I wanted something darker for the fall/winter season), so I made another one, using fabric from a pair of curtains that I had gotten at the thrift store.  I also painted the entire piece with white chalk paint, in order to give it the finished look.

And here it is.

And the back.  But of course, I couldn’t stop there, so I made new curtains to match.

Keep creating!

Clif