This cute bench was made so easily using an old thrifted coffee table. All you need to make this is obviously a coffee table, a piece of 2-3" foam, quilt batting, a staple gun, some fabric of your choice and some spray adhesive!
Here's what the coffee table looked like before I turned it into a bench....
This was a painted coffee table given to me by a friend after she was done with using it. She was planning to donate it, but I knew it would be the perfect base for a DIY coffee table, so I gladly took it off her hands. It had been sitting in my basement storage room for well over a year before I finally got around to making the bench...which seems silly cause the entire project only took me a couple hours and most of that was paint drying.
This coffee table measured 56" long, 23" deep by 23" high. I thought putting it at the end of our bed would be the perfect place for it as a bench. Our tiny wiener dog Chloe has such little legs and finds it hard to get up onto things, so this table would be low enough for her to jump up onto it. My previous bench was another DIY bench I made here. This one went viral and I absolutely loved it for all the years I had it! It was however always just a bit too high for Chloe and she likes to sleep there every night.
So to get started the first thing I did was grab some foam that we had stored away. Curtis gave me permission to use some old campers foam that we hadn't used in years. This was going to work great because the foam thickness was about 4" so I was going to be great for a bench top. Crafting foam can be quite pricey, so before you go out and buy any think if you also have some laying around!
I cut it to fit right on top of the coffee table top with a 1" exception around the edges of the table. Total cut dimensions was about 54" x 21".
I used a spray adhesive to help stick my foam onto the coffee table top. I had a can of Krylon spray adhesive I got from Michaels kicking around so that's what I used. I'm sure you could also use fabric glue or even wood glue. Just anything to keep the foam stuck in place while you are attaching the fabric on top.
I did decide to paint my coffee table base so that it would contrast with the fabric I chose which was also going to be white. I wanted there to be a contrast from the legs so I painted it with a sample colour I got from Home Depot called Behr Adaptive Shade.
After the foam was in place I took some quilt batting that I grabbed at Michaels and used that to smooth out the sharp corners of my foam top by attaching it to the underside of my coffee table lip with my favourite air staple gun from Amazon here.
Now all I had left to do was attach the fabric to the top. I decided to use an old furry throw blanket I bought years ago thinking it would be so cozy and well used, but unfortunately no one liked it but the dog so I took that as a sign that that's what I should use! The throw blanket was 50"x60" so I had just enough lengthwise to make it work.
I used a larger staple to attach this thicker material as I need to be sure it wouldn't come unattached. The only place I needed to cut off extra material was on the one side of the bench. I cut off the material after I stapled it on and luckily you didn't see the raw cut edge from the blanket because the material was so fuzzy and forgiving after you gave it a little fluff
After hundreds of staples later it was done! The corners of the fabric were a bit tricky but after cutting off as much excess material as possible and really folding over and pulling the corners tight (like when you wrap a present) it was fully attached to the underside of the table top and secure.
Chloe was happy with her new furry elevated bed!
Hope you enjoyed this easy DIY bench post! Don't forget to shop your home before you buy anything:)
Enjoy your day friends!