Drab Hope Chest to Fab Mudroom Bench

 This project was by far the most in depth one I have done to date. However, it did teach me a lot about the little details and I am proud of the end product.

This is the original piece, my Grandma Chubby's hope chest from when she was growing up. It was just sitting around in her basement so she told me I could take it and fix it up. Naturally, I had many pins on Pinterest just inspiring me to transform this drab hope chest into a fab mudroom bench! I took the idea and ran with with it. 

My first buy was the fabric that I wanted to use for the bench cushion, and then everything just came together from there. Then came the new handles and knobs, followed by making a decisions on how to go about painting it (which took hours of pondering, no lie).

Prepping List:
Hope chest
Wood filler

Bonding Primer
Paint brush
Multiple paint colors
Paint tape

Wood trim

Gorilla glue

Handles and Knobs
Drill

Batting

Adhesive spray

Fabric

Staple gun

Skipped a few steps in the pictures so let me fill you in on what went down first:

 First, I took off the old handles and knob (singular since it was missing one). Then I had to fill the holes with wood filler since the handles were very small and the new handles were much larger. Once the filler settled I was finally able to prime the hope chest, minus the top since that would be covered with the cushion.

  

As you can see I went with a little extra color to go with the design in the fabric. Each coat of paint took 3 coats, including the black.

This next part caused a lot of headache at first. There were groves between the color sections. My initial thought was to get dowel rods to paint them black and cover the groves. I was almost to the hardware store when I realized that using rods would not lay flush with the braided wood trim I had already decided on. No way did I want to sand the rods down to match the curves in the trim, so I was back to square one. So I finally decided to just be a big girl about it, tape it off (which I hate doing since it never seems to work out right), and then paint in the grooves with a smaller canvas brush. It worked after a few coats, but then of course I did a couple touch-ups. 

As you can see, the grooves came out pretty clean. Next, came the braided trim. I had them cut to size and then I sanded the top sections down a bit so they would fit underneath the lid. I was then finally able to paint them before gluing them down with Gorilla Glue. (Warning: use SMALL amounts of Gorilla Glue or else you will have foam coming out the sides, yes, foam.)

 Finally it was time to get the cushion together! Once again I needed a little help with this part, so I put my mother to work. We first rolled up the batting to where it was even on the top of the hope chest lid. When we had it the way we wanted it we used adhesive glue spray to keep the batting in place while we had the lid up and down to staple the fabric into place. There was a lot of tugging, stapling, cutting, and do-overs when getting the cushion stapled underneath the lid. No, it does not look perfect under the lid.... but that's okay for now. If it bothers me enough down the road I may get some more fabric to cover the inside.

TADA! It's finished.

 Close up of the handles... which we drilled new holes into the chest for. I learned the hard way that not all handles from Hobby Lobby are created equally! The top one was half an inch shorter than the others, so I had to make a trip back to the store to get another.

Top view of the fabric! Love it, but the cushion is not completely even yet. The batting needs worn in to become even, so if any volunteers want to sit their derrière on it for awhile come on over!

Little closer view of the braided trim...

... as well as the little knobs. 

I hope I did justice in giving this old piece new life. I can't wait to get it into my new house, with a hanging shelf above it to create the whole mudroom look! Thanks again Grandma Chubby!

Until next time, 

Audra