Built-in Storage Bench

In order to get Lucy's room ready, we have to be able to move everything out of there...all my hobby things, camping gear, musical instruments, years worth of things we've collected in the eleven years we were together pre-kids, back in the days when we each had our own room for hobbies. Things have changed!

So...Lucy's room needs a ceiling, a hole in the wall, and some storage built, but before that happens, we had to figure out where we would put all the things from what had essentially become a storage area next to our laundry room (in the midst of this chaos, we have two rooms that look like we are absolute hoarders).

Justin had the amazing idea to turn the open living room/dining area into one big living area, which I was super down with because we are practically on top of each other as it is and we already moved our little dining table to the kitchen.

This is the view looking in from the original living area. All this is recently added living room space. It's nice and big now. Double this and you have the whole room.

Ignore the pouting child on the sofa.

Justin suggested that we use the original living room area for additional seating, our musical instruments, and sort of a "living" family area, a place to play. He set up a place for me to put my sewing and craft things. Notice we are no longer sleeping in the living room. Thank you memory foam; thank you snoogle.

At first it seemed cool, but it started to feel like more clutter. It didn't seem to have a place in our living space next to our piano and other instruments.

That poor piano is going to get repainted very soon, by the way. I am so excited about the color that I want to shout it from the rooftops. But that will be a surprise...

Anyway, we had a terrific idea to turn the window area into an L-shaped storage bench. I am so lucky to have a handy guy.

The bench will be a seat but also is big enough to provide a bed for overnight guests or napping mommies.

I will post more pics when he's done. I plan to cover it with a padded surface and paint it.

This was my contribution. Hey, I'm pregnant! I chose the fabric and painted. That counts for something, right?

I love a man who knows how to handle a power tool.

He built two doors into the bench. The main part of the "L" was about 6.5 by 2 feet. He built the short section to be open underneath for toys and other items.

I chose oilcloth for the fabric because we have little kids. I went with a small aqua gingham, which I picked up from a local store called Tatermash. The woman who helped me was incredibly sweet and even assisted me with my disastrous algebra skills to ultimately save me a yard's worth of money. Surprisingly, two yards cost only $9, much less than what I'd expected to pay.

Because the oilcloth was 48" wide, we cut up the middle.

We used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the doors, which we removed to install the padding on.

The crazy winter storm that is keeping the rest of the country indoors hit here too, so instead of running to the fabric store for more batting (we had 1 package of Poly-fil from making felt plushies), hub went around the corner to Family Dollar and bought a two-for deal on cheap pillows, which I cut open to salvage the stuffing.

We stuffed...

And stuffed. We don't really know how to do this kind of thing, so we were winging it with a broomstick. Seems to have worked out all right.

At the end of day 2 in our free time, we managed to get this much completed. I will post a pic of the finished project tomorrow!