For months, perhaps even years I have wanted a bench near my front door. We do not have a coat closet in our house or an entry way, or mudroom so all of our shoes and bags just end up on the floor in our living room...the formal living room. It's annoying to me that my guests are greeted by a pile of shoes and worse, a mountain of junk that ends up being stored in the formal living room (more about this later). I finally put my foot down on this situation and rearranged everything.
I guess I was waiting to paint that room the shade of grey that we painted the family room and kitchen, but honestly Christmas is approaching and I do not have the money or time to get it together before all of the holiday parties. Therefore I decided to just put the furniture where I wanted it to go and we would move it when it was time to paint. The most important project was building a bench to house shoes and a place where we can sit to put them on. Also we were in desperate need for a coat rack to hang hats and bags (which are normally strewn about the room on the floor). So after months..maybe even years, of begging my Super Husband to build me a bench he finally broke down and did it.
>>>Before I go on I have to just quickly explain why he didn’t want to do it in the first place. He didn’t want to make it out of 2x4s. I wanted 2x4s because they are cheap, easy to work with and sturdy, but he didn't think it would look good. Finally he agreed and set to work on it one weekend. I was elated, finally my dreams of a bench and coat hanger would come to life. Two days and $60 later we had a bench, 5 hooks for coats and bags, and a shelf that I could decorate. I painted everything black (to match the monochromatic theme I am leaning towards) and bolted everything to the wall. I couldn’t be happier!
Here are some before and after pictures:
This is my Living room. The space between the door and the window is the area in question.
Here it is now, with our brand new bench, hooks and shelf. (sorry about the pic quality)
My Super Husband can seriously build anything, but he is not carpenter. I don't think that he thought he was going to be able to build this thing but I had faith in him. He started off by building a frame for the legs to attach to and the top to sit on
Then laid four 2x4s side by side and attached them to the frame by sinking screws into the frame so you wouldn't see them in the top.
Seemed simple enough, until it was time to add the legs...
He decided to attach them to the inside of the frame, and that was a mistake. It made the entire bench top heavy and easy to push over, whats more is we were unable to fit a shelf underneath the bench for more shoe storage. And for some strange reason I thought that the whole thing looked kind of like a cartoon sheep with a big body and tiny little legs (don't ask). To his dismay we had to take the legs off and figure out a better way. Good thing he's a building-things-genius because he immediately had a solutions and viola! We had a beautiful new bench..
Much better than the first leg positioning
As you can see, we still have lots more painting to do...not until after the Holidays though, whew!
Happy Creating,
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