The new house is coming together slowly but surely, and I’m finally focusing on making over my bedroom! It’s been a hot mess since we moved in. Today I’m sharing a fun little project I did for the space. I made an easy DIY faux leather upholstered bench in under an hour, and I’m going to walk you through the process.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Arrow Fastener. All opinions are my own.
My life is chaotic right now, and while I knew I wanted a bench for the foot of my bed, I also didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew with this project at the moment.
I decided to attempt to make it as easy on myself as I could, and then share that process with you so that you’d be able to do the same! The key to simplifying this project was ordering prefabricated legs (I got mine on Amazon), and then focusing my time on the seat portion of the bench.
HOW TO BUILD AN EASY DIY UPHOLSTERED BENCH IN UNDER AN HOUR
Step 1
Cut Your Wood
With lumber prices being through the roof right now, I wanted to use some wood from my scrap stash (yay for hoarding finally working to my advantage!). I used some 3/4″ plywood for this, and using my handheld circular saw I cut it down to 12″ W x 48″ L.
Step 2
Cut Your Upholstery Foam
Next, I cut down some 2 inch thick upholstery foam to the size of my plywood (12″ x 48″). A serrated knife (like a bread knife) works well for this, but I didn’t have a good one on hand so I used a combination of my box cutter and fabric scissors. I didn’t get the cleanest edge, but I’ll be covering it with fabric anyway so I decided it was good enough for me!
Step 3
Cut Your Fabric
I skipped using batting in order to save money, but if you’re using batting under your fabric then you’ll cut it down during this step too. I ordered a yard of faux caramel leather from Amazon, and it was pretty much the exact right size so I didn’t cut it until after stapling. I cut away a little bit of the excess afterwards.
Step 4
Staple Your Fabric
Place your fabric face down on your work surface (in my case, that was the floor as per usual), then layer your foam and then your wood on top. I used my Arrow T50ACN Electric Stapler and Nailer along with 3/8″ staples to attach my faux leather to the plywood. I stretched it as I stapled, and started by stapling the middle of each side before going back around and securing the rest of it. I cut excess away in each corner to avoid bulkiness, and stapled those last.
This stapler made the job super easy. It was easy to use and according to Arrow’s site, it’s great for jobs that require many staples as well as for users with limited grip strength. It’s a handy tool and I’m sure I will get a lot of use out of it for future projects as well.
Step 5
Attach Legs
As I mentioned earlier, I ordered prefabricated wooden mid-century style legs online, along with angled brackets to attach them to my bench.
I pre-drilled holes and screwed on the angled brackets in each corner (about 1″ in from each end and 1 1/2″ in from each side), and then twisted the legs in place.
That’s it! Now I have a bench for my soon to be made over bedroom (stay tuned for the full room makeover very soon!).
Check out my video tutorial for this project here:
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Remarkable Blog Posts!! Great work Buddy.