Turning This Into That: Industrial Parts Organizer RE-DO into Kitchen Bench

I'm really disappointed. My husband and I purchased this monstrosity of a parts organizer off of publicsurplus.com a while ago. It was HUGE. Picture this: 3 {THREE} individual metal cabinets made of pure metal- together they were about 5 foot high and 10 feet long. Drawers galore...dividers...cubbies...pulls...side tool holders. All metal. We bought it for 100 clams, picked it up {with the help of a forklift} and happily brought it to where we were living.

We moved a short time later. I think my brothers are still cursing us and our prized possession.

When we moved we had a desire to bring this wonderful piece of work into our home in some sort of beautiful, functional way. I had the idea to chop the top {meaning the drawers} off of the units and bring them inside to use as the kids' craft storage area and extra seating for when family is all there. {I have this THING about everyone being able to sit in the same room, at least. I'm even MORE excited if it's all at the same table!}

So we did. We saw the crap out of this thing, put feet on it and brought it indoors (after A LOT of cleaning). The cubbies are still in the garage waiting patiently to be made into a makeshift mudroom type situation.

I was at Home Depot with the family the other day and noticed that they were selling foam mattresses for $20---TWENTY BUCKS! These things usually go for substantially more- which is why I haven't yet tackled this project. Until NOW.

I started to cut it with my scissors I was so excited to get started. It didn't work. I ended up calling a friend to borrow her electric knife {mine bit the dust years ago}, which was WAAY easier.

Once I got that cut, the husband {I think I'll start calling him Mr. Wonderful- it might get me some points} cut me some plywood 7 feet by 2 feet.

He also had a desire to keep the seat ON the bench. With four kids things are going to move, break, bend and, did I say break? So we drilled some holes through the plywood and the top of the metal bench so we could anchor it.

I picked up some beige twill and some clear vinyl {over in the oilcloth section} in the fabric department of Walmart. We were there fulfilling the ever-growing list of needed items for my children to succeed in school.

First (I don't have pictures because we were both involved), we hot glued the foam to the plywood. It made it easier to flip over and lift, etc. I recommend it. We then spread the twill out and amidst the scraps of additional foam, we laid everything out.

Once we laid everything out, we pulled the edge of the fabric around the side of the board, folded it under once and stapled it with a staple gun. We did a whole side first, then the opposite side and finally we "hospital cornered" the ends and stapled them, too. Then we flipped it over to see how it looked.

We wanted to add a little to it- not a lot. So I pulled a wooden letter off of my mantel, some acrylic paint and a sponge brush out of the organizer and a paper plate together.

We practiced this more than a couple times (make sure to double up your fabric, in case of bleed-through) to see what we liked best and if it was going to work at all. We ended liking thick paint strokes over the letter. It got too messy when we painted paint directly onto the letter and was less textural.

We pressed the letter into the fabric as evenly as we possibly could.

We rubbed the letter into the fabric- like you would a stamp into paper...or fabric. ;)

It wasn't enough. So we looked around the house and found this little darling from my brother's wedding a bit back.

We practiced our location, painted the rim and applied it to the fabric where we liked it the most.

We let the paint dry and then we got ready to repeat the twill-wrapping process with the clear vinyl. Otherwise, one good milk spill and we were out a bench cushion.