Filecabinet/Bench UpCycle

So we had this large freestanding wooden filing cabinet given to us by a friend.  Having no clue what to do with it, it had various uses in the old house.  The drawer that held the files was broken off so it was just a large wooden box on legs.  After moving we face the common conundrum of finding a place for all the furniture.  Since the thing was taking up too much space and I had a free weekend (Josh was in the field) I came up with the somewhat ingenious plan of turning it into a bench for at the foot of our bed.  WARNING: Have a plan first, unless you like to aggravate yourself and burn out your husband's rechargeable battery for his drill.  I had to buy him a new one soon after.  Here is the best before picture I could find of the box with legs, I got so excited that I forgot to take some pictures during the process.

I started out by unscrewing everything within the reach of the drill.  I figured that I wanted to get rid of the three sides and use the top for the cushion.

Here are the pieces that I stuck with.  As you can see it is a lower to the ground bench, but it is perfect for Josh to take his boots off after work and to allow Liam to crawl into bed with us.  After I tore it apart it was time to put it back together with the fabric that I chose.

It was actually a bedskirt that I found at the Goodwill for $5 and I just dyed it to match our bedding as best as possible.  I measured out three sections that matched up and then sewed them together. 

After they were connected, I stapled the edges to the underside of the top of the file cabinet leaving room for the stuffing that I would use for the cushion.

 After I went through a few times of stapling it the right way, I had to redo it because I forgot to remove some of the trim on the top, I stuffed it full with as much batting as I could.  Once it was stuffed, and Josh was home by this time, we went about tufting the cushion.  As you can see there is some variation in the coloring of the material from dying it.  I didn't mind it too much, but if you are picky you can always spend longer to dye it how you like.

Josh is drilling screws into the cushion to tuft it.  I would recommend not doing this, but hammer nails in instead.  We just figured that screws would work just as well and faster, but it tears up the material a bit.

Here is Josh sitting on it to make sure that no screws that connected the top to the bottom came up and stuck him in the butt.  He is such a good guinea pig for me.  All in all, I wish I had directions when making the bench, but my failure can be used for your success.  I would have also used a material that I had more of so I could do one piece of fabric rather than three.  I also would have used more batting as well as nails for the tufting.  Here is the finished product (that may be redone in the near future).

As you can see, it compliments our bedding and bedroom.  But I am not 100% happy with it.  Maybe once things slow down a bit I can redo it and update this with a better looking bench.  But in all the project cost us $20 all together, $5 for the material, $10 for the batting and $5 for the dye.  I guess this also shows you what you can do with those free or handed down pieces of furniture that you have no clue what to do with.

Happy Re-mollying!
Molly