It seems like it is becoming a tradition for our family to visit every summer for our son’s birthday. Full house = full of love. So you can imagine our guest room is heavily used. Preparing the guest room is usually my top priority right before they arrive and then I kind of forget about it. When I first moved in I envisioned this room to be a cozy space for any guest equipped with style and organization that can be used through out the year for us. A year has passed and I haven’t done much to it. One of my ideas was to have a functional bench at the end of the bed for guests to lie there suitcases on. Such a simple but useful accessory for any guest room. I didn’t have much luck finding one I liked that fit my vision. And well with just a few short weeks before there arrival I decided I am just going to make my own.
This DIY is literally like 5 steps depending on your skill level.
Material
- 1×12 Common Board in 6ft
- Hairpin Table Legs 16in
- Varathane Wood Stain in Golden Oak
- Paint color of your choice, I used Color Palace Onyx Black
- Painters Tape and Paint Brush
Tools
- Rigid 7in Circular Saw, Or you can get Home Depot to cut the board to size for free
- Rigid Cordless 5in Orbit Sander
- Rigid Cordless Drill
- Paintbrush
Steps
- So some of you may already know whenever you buy wood from Home Depot they offer a service where they will cut down wood to your preferred measurements. This can be very useful for customers who do not own a saw. So when you purchase the 6ft you can just ask them to cut it down to 4ft and remove the hassle of cutting it yourself. In my case we own a saw so I used our Rigid 7in Circular saw to cut it down.
- You want to sand down the board for staining so there are no rough surfaces. This is also ideal for any wood you will be using for seating.
- Stain the board using any old cotton shirt you don’t mind sacrificing or there are brushes available to purchase specifically for wood stains. I prefer cotton shirts as they don’t leave streaks. I love Varathane wood stain from Home Depot. They offer so many different color stains. I went with Golden Oak for this look.
- Painting the ends are totally optional if you choose not to paint the bench you can go ahead to the next step of drilling the hair pin legs in. I wanted to add some color to my bench but still keep it minimal. I had some left over black paint from my kitchen island project so I went ahead and gave it a try. I began with measuring the distance of the legs from the edge of the board. I wanted to make sure I covered the length of the legs with the black paint to give it a seamless look. I then went ahead and added an inch to that measurement. I marked it and taped all around the board.
- Give it about 2-3 layers of paint. That give you the “painted dipped” end look. I know you guys are wondering, “Wait I thought you actually dipped the ends into a bucket of paint?” Nope, it is just a simple trick of painters tape and a few coats of paint. Now you can try actually dipping the paint but this is way less messier in my opinion.
- Once the paint has dried and you’ve removed the tape you can begin drilling the legs in. I purchased the hair pin legs from Amazon. They had so many different styles and sizes. I chose 16 inches which is about the height of our guest bed. That is also about the average size of a sitting bench if you need a reference. Start with pilot holes. This avoids any damage or splits to the wood before drilling the screws in. The bench comes with screws so that is what I used. They were actually just shy of 1 inch so I lucked out.
And there you have it! A functional, stylish, custom bench for any room for under $50. This was the perfect edition to our guest room.
Native Noir 