Storage Bench Makeover

Hello everyone–let’s start the week off with fun furniture flip!

We first built this little storage bench for our little mudroom nook at the old house. It held up great over the years, and it even had a nice little spot next to the stairs at our current house for awhile.

When I replaced it with a new bench, it sat unused in the basement. I wanted to give it a new look to sell it and it turned out even better than I had pictured that it would!

Supplies Used:(Affiliate links may be provided for convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.)

I began by using the jigsaw to cut out the fronts of the doors.

I could have just painted them, but I had something much more fun in mind! I used the sander to make the edges as smooth as possible.

Next, I cut down some decorative aluminum and stapled it to the back of each door. When we did this for our fireplace built-ins I just left the staples exposed, but since I was selling this piece I actually hot glued coffee stir sticks over the staples to make them look a little cleaner. I forgot to grab a pic but hopefully you get the idea! I then scuff sanded the base and both of the doors to prep them for paint.

To make it a little more interesting, I decided to add some fun to the base. I started with a 1×2 MDF along the bottom, then cut down pieces of fluted trim to fit inside the left over space.

Once all of the holes were spackled and sanded, it was time for paint! I applied a couple of coats using the sprayer, sanding between coats.

I painted the inside but later realized that the paint didn’t want to stick to the slick surface, so I scraped it all off.

I sealed it all up with a two coats of polyacrylic before bringing it inside to clean the cushion. I used our magic little Little Green Machine and it looked as good as the day I first upholstered it!

After some new pull bars and contact paper here is how it turned out.