My DIY Serena & Lily Inspired Toy Storage Benches
The Problem:
My living room is small and although we have enough room in our home for a playroom my 22 month old daughter would never stay in there alone to play. The result? A small living room that looked more like a playroom that housed a nice couch, entertainment center and TV.
The Dream-World Solution:
I LOVED these storage benches that I found online. The issue with my love of these gorgeous benches was that, well, they were $375 a piece with an added $25 for shipping. That doesn't even include the fact that I would STILL need to purchase the canvas bins that go inside!! Oh yeah....did I forget to mention that I needed TWO?
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| Serena & Lily Website |
The Real-World Solution:
After many hours on Pinterest and the Ikea website I finally came to what I now LOVE having in my living room!
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| The letters spell out "hope" but it's upside down. I still need to paint the other side to match the room. I just used thumbtacks to put it up temporarily to see if I really wanted the word up there! |
The Materials:
- 2- Ikea "Expedit" shelving units. $29.99 each. (The two cubby hole shelf is NOT listed on their website for some reason but they do have it in store. On their website they only have the shelves with either one slot or many more slots but not with only two slots like mine pictured above)
- 4- Ikea Drona boxes in the color of your choosing. $5.99 each
- 1 sheet of particle board from your local Lowes or Home Depot $17.22 per sheet. Ask them to cut it down for you to the size that you need. For these particular Ikea shelves you will need two pieces that are 31 1/2 x 15 3/8. The rest of the particle board is yours to do what you would like to with. I had them cut it down a bit more so that I could fit it in my car however!
- 1 foam slab from your local fabric store. Prices range here depending on the thickness. I purchased 1 inch thickness for only $20.99 (it was on sale!). This thickness worked just fine since the particleboard was also pretty think the seat height came out just right.
- 2 yards of fabric of your choosing. Price will vary here. I used upholstery fabric (which is more expensive) only because I couldn't get the color I wanted any other way. The store also has many other thicker fabrics that could work just as well.
- 1 basic staple gun...nothing fancy here!
- 1 pair of scissors
- 1 marker or pen
The Construction:
I'm going to go ahead and admit that I was not that great at taking pictures of each step along the way...I'm sorry! I added a one novice explanatory picture that I made myself to give you a visual! If you have questions just ask!
- Roll out your foam slab.
- Lay down your pre-cut particleboard pieces on top of the foam.
- Spread the particleboard pieces out evenly so that you have enough foam to wrap around the edges of each piece of particle board.
- In the space between the pieces of particleboard, draw a line to give yourself a straight line on which to cut.
- Cut your foam.
- Take one piece of foam and lay your particleboard on top.
- Begin to pull the foam around the edge of the particleboard and staple. When you get to the corners you may choose to layer similar to wrapping a present or cut a bit of the excess foam so it isn't as bulky on the corners.
- As you are stapling keep your staples about an inch apart. Otherwise when you cover your foam in fabric you will notices lots of bubbling on your bench.
These staples were too far apart. I went back and stapled again in the middle of each gap. - Repeat steps 7-11 with your second piece.
- Now, onto fabric. You will need two separate pieces of fabric. To do this I spread out my fabric and put my benches on top to mark where I wanted to cut it.
- Once you have cut your fabric begin covering and stapling the same way you did with the foam and...voila you have two beautiful designer benches custom made to match YOUR space for less than it would cost retail!
