I got part of my inspiration from this blog that I found via, you guessed it, Pinterest. There was another pin that was similar too but I liked the above linked to blog better.
You can tell simply from looking at the pictures that my bench is a little bit different from her ottoman. She covered the top and sides of her coffee table with foam, batting, and fabric then stapled it all underneath the coffee table. I didn't want to do it exactly like that because I wanted to keep the drawer in the coffee table functional. . . and my way was a little easier too.
Materials Needed (based on the fact that my bench was about 40 inches x 20 inches)
- foam to fit the top - you may need to cut it to fit
- batting to fit the top, sides of the foam, and go under the foam- I got 28 inches of 48 inch wide batting.
- fabric to fit the top, sides of the foam, and go under the foam - I got 28 inches of 54 inch wide fabric.
- hot glue
Step 1: Cut the foam to fit.
The foam should be exactly the size of the top of the coffee table. I bought two pieces of foam that were 2 x 22 x 22. I used a ruler to measure where to cut on the foam and a sharpie marker to draw a cut line. Then CJ found some exacto-knives and we simply cut on the lines. The lady at Jo-Ann told me an electric knife works really well but I didn't have one so I made do.
Step 2 (optional): Glue the pieces of foam to each other.
I call this step optional because it is possible to have just one piece of foam or if multiple pieces of foam are used it is still possible to continue with the other steps while the foam isn't glued together - I just figured it would be easier if they were attached.
Step 3: Lay the batting flat on the ground then lay the foam in the center.
Step 4: Glue the batting to the foam.
I did the long sides first then folded the corners of the short sides in and glued them in place.
Step 5: Lay the fabric right side down on the ground then lay the foam/batting in the center.
Step 6: Glue the fabric to the foam/batting.
Again, I started with the long sides.
Step 7: Glue the foam to the top of the coffee table.
I put a line of glue down the middle of the coffee table then put the foam on top of that. Then I lifted the sides of the foam and just glued near the edges all the way around. Seems as though it worked pretty well since the foam padding is attached to my coffee table pretty well.
Done.
I put the bench in my entry way. The first picture below shows my entry while we were still using the coffee table in the living room. The second picture is the entry after we bought a new coffee table (with matching side tables!). The last in the entry with the finished bench.
