Vanity and Bench Redo, Part 2...

Okay, so I walked you through the steps of stripping, painting, and antiquing the pretty little vanity a couple of days ago.  Today I am going to show you how I reupholstered the matching bench.  


Remember this ugly little thing with the sad gold velvet fabric? How could you forget, right? 

Well, the first thing I did was unscrew the cushion from the base and remove all that goldness.  Someone really wanted to make sure it didn't go anywhere because I removed what seemed like a thousand staples!  Once I was down to the cushion, which was surprisingly in great shape, I took my fabric of choice and draped it over the cushion and smoothed out all the wrinkles.  The fabric I chose is a pretty, neutral, taupe linen.  It has a nice grain in it and looks great with the cream paint choice.

I then turned the cushion over, and used a staple gun to fasten the fabric to the wooden base, making sure that I kept the fabric pulled tight to keep it from sagging and puckering.  Notice that I didn't staple down the corners.  I will do that last, once all four sides of the bench are stapled down. 

Okay, now for the corners.  The trick is to make a triangle.  You push the sides of the fabric on the corner in, then pull tight and it makes a little triangle.  This will give the corner a nice round edge.  I then stapled in three places - both sides and the top.

As a finishing detail, I took a smaller scrap of the linen fabric and covered the based of the cushion so that you can't see the staples and raw edges when you turn the bench over.  It looks a little more polished when you add in this simple extra step.

This entire reupholster job probably took me less than 15 minutes, and what a difference it makes! 


The final product....drum roll....

Taaadaaa! Pretty isn't it?  I am going to add this photo to the Couture Collection page since it is a sale item.  Sometimes I will repurpose items for my home and sometimes I will offer pieces up to you.  Sadly, I don't have room for this adorable set, so it is going up for sale.  Hmmm....but the more I look at her, the more I want to keep her.  I am living up to the "closet hoarder" title my husband has given me!