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Building a Shoe Storage Bench from Kitchen Cabinets

diy bench from cabinets

Welcome! If you are a friend, you know that all our friends and family enter through our mudroom. This door is the closest to our driveway. Only the door-to-door salesmen go to our front door (heh, heh, heh!)

Come on in! This blackboard, mirror and memory board used to be a discarded window.
Make one of your own! Tutorial here.


This is my pride and joy! My mudroom bench and coat rack. Yes, I made it myself.
And no, I didn’t have any help from my husband. I am the handywoman of our home.


I’ll give you a little background about how this bench came to be. I really loved having a mudroom to begin with. But, the piles of shoes and coats that accumulated behind the door were making me nuts! Who knew that a flip flop could double as a door stop, not allowing me to enter my own house!

My son tried to help out by piling all the shoes on top of the coat rack. Better, right?!


Sure, I could have hopped over to Pottery Barn and bought a mudroom bench and shelf, but I balked at the price tag. So, I continued to ponder a solution. I dreamed of having a perfect storage solution to streamline my mornings of getting two little boys out the door to preschool. A bench to perch the kids on while putting on their shoes. (A task I know someday I will miss doing, but for now I can’t wait for them to learn to tie their own shoes.)  Everyone’s socks and shoes would be at hand but not in the way. And a place for every jacket, book bag, and hat. The final product was beyond my dreams. I love it more than any other piece of furniture in my house. It is my sanity saver!

My dreams began to form when I stumbled across some kitchen wall cabinets on clearance at Lowe’s. These are the short cabinets that mount over your fridge. They were marked down to $45 each.

The wheels in my brain began to turn. I started to see how I could use these cabinets to solve our shoe dilemma.

I bought some lumber. I also had some salvage pieces that had been collecting dust in our attic. An old door with recessed panels, four ornate old coffee table legs, and some shelf brackets from a yard sale.

After a few days of distressing and staining boards, cutting lumber, rounding some edges, hammering, nailing, driving screws and sweating, this is what I ended up with!

Chain throwing and hammer marks add a distressed look to new wood.

Decorative shelf brackets add nice character to the back rest.

Salvage coffee table legs add that much needed detail.

The finished bench (the only time it was ever empty.)

diy bench from cabinets
Loaded with shoes and with the salvage door on top as a coat rack. A mudroom bench with shoe storage and a clear floor! My sanity has returned.

If you are intrigued as to how I constructed this bench – keep reading. If not, thanks for stopping by. I hope you will come back again soon. And, the tutorial for the coat rack is here!

 

Building the Shoe Storage Bench (the Tutorial)

I have to apologize up front for not having the usual step-by-step tutorial for this bench. But, I built it pre-blogging days when I didn’t have to stop and start after every step to take a photograph. I hope you’ll forgive me. And now the abbreviated tutorial:

Here is the bench flipped on its back to show you the base construction:

I built the base frame by nailing 2x4s together.

Added a 1×4 board (toe kick) to hide the cheap 2×4’s. Then finish nailed the toe kick to the base frame.

Now the upright view to show you the bench construction:

I attached the two wall cabinets to the base frame with screws.

Added a 1″ thick pine board cut to size to fit between the two cabinets. This board also hides the base frame.

Used two 1×4 pine boards with rounded top corners for the back rest.

Mounted decorative coffee table legs by driving a screw down through the bench seat.

From the back, the bench looks like this (not pretty, but no one sees it.):

You can see the two wall cabinets from the back side.

Another view of the two 1×4 back rest boards.

Shelf brackets were used to mount the back rest to the bench seat.

Screwed 2×2 cleats to back of cabinets, then attached the bench seat by driving a screw down through the seat and into cleats.

Now to show you how the pieces were attached, the close up below is a view of the shelf bracket and corner section:


This corner shows how I used screws and nails to attach the parts (definitely ignore my sloppy nailing skills. I’m still working on perfection y’all.)

Base cabinets had particle board construction, so I added veneer end caps.

Close up of end cap veneer with base moulding profile cut out.

Read more about scribing and cutting a profile here.


Then I added L brackets inside the cabinets to support a shelf.

Add the shelf and you’ve got double the shoe storage.

Hmmm, but if you have shoes, you need to have sock storage as well. I purchased one magazine basket at Target.

And filled it with our socks. Old baby wipe containers are used to divide the socks for each of my sons.


And voila, I have an efficient sock storage spot.

Here is the final result loaded with socks, shoes and coats! The coat rack is made from an old door, antique hooks, and yard sale shelves.
Coat rack tutorial is here!

Not bad for about $200 in materials! I love my mudroom bench and get oodles of compliments on it.

See y’all later.

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Painting Decorative Graphics on a Wall

On Monday I showed you my fireplace painting from white paint back to brick. This was only one step in our major living room renovation. I hope you will hop back again this week to see some of the other transformations we made to this room:

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall (this post)
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

Step 1 was a magical transformation of white painted brick to brownstone brick using paint!

Step 2 was actually a 5 step program to lightening up the room, we dubbed the dark cave. 

Before

And as promised, we’ve arrived to Step 3 in our Living Room renovation.

So, I admit it, I’m gaga for those silhouetted wall graphics. Some of my favorites are from Leen the Graphics Queen.

Because I have a background in illustration, I didn’t think twice about customizing the wall behind our bookcase with a design. If you have a super shaky hand, definitely stop here and head over to Leen’s!

If you are up for a challenge, keep reading. After clearing my built-in bookshelves, I started by lightly outlining where the bookshelves met the wall with pencil or chalk. Then I took out the bookshelves.

Next I used chalk to draw the outlines of my design. I was careful to avoid having a bird where the shelves would meet the wall.

 

Don’t think you can draw freehand? Try this trick (it works for enlarging a design also):
You can always print something you find online or make a copy of a design you see in print.
Legalese: Please be respectful of other’s artwork and
don’t try to sell anything you put the image on. 
That is copyright infringement! Technically even copying the image from 
someone else’s site or from a book is too. But, we’ll bend the law just this once. 
You can take your print out and draw a grid across it (see above). Then draw your larger grid on the wall and focus on drawing one box in the grid at a time.

Now get your good brushes out. Make sure you have at least a small round brush with a good tip. And a flat brush will help too. A good brush really makes all the difference.

I used my Benjamin Moore Aura wasabi powder paint leftover from this project and over my chalk outlines.

So, here is something I didn’t tell you yesterday. I actually left the dark pine green behind my bookshelves in the living room. So, when I used the lighter wasabi powder green it showed up lighter on the pine green. It is an optical illusion that the graphics are lighter than the rest of the room’s color.

After the paint dried I used a damp rag to remove the pencil and/or chalk marks. Then put the shelves back in.

See, no birdies were harmed during the creation of this wall treatment. By tracing the shelves from the start, I was able to ensure that the birds were not covered up by the shelves.

I love the whimsy that the graphics add, don’t you?

 

When I style my shelves, I TRY to keep it sparse.

And that was it! The cost was next to nothing since I used the same gallon of paint for the walls in the room (from yesterday.)

I hope you will stop by for my next post on preparing the floor for hardwood flooring. And installing BEAUTIFUL antique reclaimed heart pine flooring. I am so excited to show you this!

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Lighten Up! 5 Ways to Bring Light into a Dark Room

On Monday I showed you my fireplace painting from white paint back to brick. This was only one step in our major living room renovation. I hope you will hop back again this week to see some of the other transformations we made to this room.

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps (this post)
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

After the bricks were painted, I enjoyed the results for a few months, but I had bigger ideas for this room. The first was to lighten up the room. This room has no windows, only a sliding glass door that opens to a screened porch. No ceiling lights except two eyeball lights aimed at the fireplace.  Add to that a deep pine green paint on the walls and this room was one dark cave.

These pictures were taking before we moved in:

 

Years ago Pretty Handy Guy and I learned that the first thing you need to do to increase light in your room is to scrape the popcorn ceiling and repaint it using Valspar’s Ultra Bright Flat White Paint.

Photo courtesy of DIYNetwork.com

This always makes a dramatic difference in how much light is reflected (as opposed to being absorbed by the popcorn texture and dull builder’s white paint.)

Okay, so if you are thinking that I scraped the ceiling myself, think again.  I may be pretty handy – and there isn’t much I can’t do – but this is one job I choose NOT to do. I scraped our pantry ceiling and it was easy, but my neck hurt for days! Do yourself a favor and hire someone to scrape, spackle and sand for you if you have neck or shoulder issues like I do. Then you can prime and paint with a roller on an extension pole.

Ceiling scraped, spackled, sanded, primed, and painted with ultra white paint. Wow, that is bright white!

Just kidding. I didn’t take a picture of the ceiling.

Most people know that adding a lighter color to a room increases the amount of light. Dark colors absorb light while lighter colors reflect them. (Remember the wisdom of not wearing black on a hot sunny day).

After much deliberation*, (because I liked the green color that was already there) I chose a lighter green for the walls. Wasabi Powder by Behr. But I had my favorite “paint guys” at Ace Hardware match the color in a Benjamin Moore Satin Aura Paint.

*When I deliberate, I bring home about 50 different swatches from many brands for each room I am trying to decide for. Then I put up a few at a time stuck in door jams, light switches, etc. I move them around on different walls at different times of the day. Then weed out the ones I don’t like. I live with the colors for at least a week, taking time to narrow my choices down to three. Then I run to buy the little sample paint jars of the colors I chose or have the paint department at Lowe’s mix one ($3 for a sample of ANY color! Woot!)

At this point I am so gung-ho about painting that I grab my brush and paint big 3′ x 1′ patches of the finalists on all four walls right up against the white trim (so I have one edge against white not the existing wall color). But, If you aren’t quite ready to paint on your walls, you can paint your swatches on big pieces of poster board instead. Usually within a day I can decide on “The One.”

Since this was my first experience with Benjamin Moore Aura paint. I was shocked when the paint covered the deeper green with only one coat! Pretty Handy Guy and I are perfectionists about painting, so we have always used two coats on any room we paint. We both agreed that this time we couldn’t see ANY spots showing through with this paint!

Legalese: Of course, your results may vary.
We have since painted the office from a dark sienna color
to a light stone color and definitely need the two coats.

One more thing about Aura paint, it really is super low odor. It is more expensive, but you don’t have to use as much since it covers better, no roller marks, and …hey, it is good for you and the environment!

The new color made a difference, but the biggest unexpected change in light happened when we widened this doorway:

This was a measly 4 feet opening from the kitchen to the living room.

I had been trying to convince Pretty Handy Guy for eons months that we really needed to open up the doorway. I wanted to be able to see what our two screaming boys were up to while struggling to pull dinner out of the oven. Or be able to participate in conversation with guests when they sat in the living room and I was busy in the kitchen.

I tried taping up cardboard to show him the new width. But, he just couldn’t see the potential. Luckily, he finally gave in.

The next day, I hired a contractor to open up the doorway. This guy was worth his weight in gold, especially when he proposed a brilliant idea:

“Why not add sconce lights to each side of the opening in the living room since I have to cut holes to move the wiring in your wall anyway?” YES! I yelled. I could kiss that contractor. To this day, I still love those sconces and the light they add to the room. But, most of all, I loved the expression on Pretty Handy Guy’s face (sheer quizzical skepticism) when he heard “sconces”. I found out later that Pretty Handy Guy didn’t have the same vision as I did:

Opening up that wall had an unexpected bonus. It allowed all the light from the kitchen bay window to spill into the living room. So, to recap, here are the light altering changes we made:

  1. Scrape Ceilings
  2. Repaint Ceilings Ultrabright White
  3. Repaint Walls Lighter Green
  4. Add Sconce Lights to both sides of the wall opening
  5. Open Doorway

And the results speak for themselves!

Before shot: Living room during daylight with table lamp lighting

 

After shot: Nighttime room lit by fireplace lights
(gotta love Santa’s magic North Pole footprints made with baking soda!)

 

After shot: Nighttime room lit by fireplace lights, sconces
and (okay) a few Christmas tree blinkies

Before shot: 4 foot doorway looking into living room

 

After shot: Same doorway widened to almost 8 ft. (doorway looking into kitchen)

 

Final shot: Way too early Christmas morning!
Stay tuned!
Tomorrow, how to paint decorative graphics in the back of your built-in bookcase.
And then…Dec. 26th 2009…Christmas is over, take down the tree and remove everything from the room. Make way for reclaimed antique heart pine floors! You gotta see this (coming soon.)
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Painting Brick Fireplace – From White to Beautiful Brownstone

Painting Brick Fireplace

This is the first in a five part series on renovating our living room:

1. Faux painting brick over a previously painted white brick fireplace (this post)
2. Lightening up a room in 5 steps
3. Painting decorative graphics on a wall
4. Preparing to Install Antique Heart Pine Floors (and living to tell about it!)
5. Installing Heart Pine Floors and the Final Reveal

I know the trend lately is to paint fireplace brick white. Especially if the brick is an ugly bright red or some other ugly color. I’m pretty sure that is why our fireplace was painted in the first place.

Painting Brick Fireplace
Before Shot

Painting Brick Fireplace

But, the fact that our fireplace, mantle and the built-in bookshelves on both sides of our fireplace are white, made for an overwhelming amount of white on that one wall. I thought about painting the mantle, but only briefly. I really wanted the warmth and contrast of bricks to set off all the white in our living room.

I stumbled across a few websites showing painted brick here and here. Then I thought, “If someone can do it, then there is a 95% chance that I can do it too!”

I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but in the end I am amazed by how real it looks. And, how easy it was to do! The true test came when I fooled the builder of our house (he has lived on our street for over 30 years) into thinking I had stripped the paint off the bricks! Sweet success.

This is a relatively easy project. It took several hours, but can be done in sections.

Painting Brick Fireplace Materials Needed:

TSP cleaner
Scrub brush for use with TSP cleaner
Drop cloth
Newspapers
Painters Tape
Paint Roller and Tray
Stiff 2″ paint brush
Car wash sponge or large 6″ x 3″ sized sponge
Spray bottle with water
7 paper plates
Rags for clean Up
Acrylic Paint (see below for colors)

Before you do anything, buy some TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) cleaner at the hardware store and follow the directions to clean your brick. Be forewarned that you may actually like the color of your bricks once they are clean and dry! If you still hate the color, proceed…

After working up a test board by playing with several color combinations, I chose a warm brown brick color. I also tweaked my mortar color before painting it on my fireplace.

Painting Brick Fireplace

I covered the mantle and bookcases by taping newspapers to them. Then, covered the floor with a drop cloth.

I mixed up a small container of my mortar color. I used some leftover latex satin taupe paint from our other house and added some black and a little dark brown to achieve the perfect mortar color.

My color looks like this warm gray cement color:

Painting Brick Fireplace

I painted all the mortar areas between the bricks with a 2″ paint brush.

Painting Brick Fireplace

As the mortar color dried, I mixed up a bucket of my base color for the bricks. Then poured it into a paint tray.

Painting Brick Fireplace

Then, I laid out my seven paper plates and filled the first one with a deep chocolate oops paint (Valspar Latex Eggshell Chestnut).

And poured a half dollar size of the following colors onto the other plates (one color per plate).

Painting Brick Fireplace

I used a paint roller to roll the base color onto small 3′ x 3′ sections of my fireplace. (Don’t worry if the paint doesn’t soak into all the grooves. Some of the white showing through made my bricks look old and rustic.)

While the base color was still wet, I covered my sponge with the Chestnut color. Then dipped the sponge into one or two of the brick tint colors. I sponged one brick at a time using the same color tints sporadically around the wall. Keeping the brick colors varied and random make them look real!

Painting Brick Fireplace

When the sponge needed to be reloaded with paint, I began with the chestnut color first, then added one or two new color tints to the sponge. You will have to refill the paper plates as you use up the paint.

I kept working in small sections, to be able to work while the base color was still wet (use the spray bottle of water to lightly wet the bricks if it dries too quick).

Painting Brick Fireplace

The best part was that if I didn’t like a color, I could go back over it and try a different tint. Notice how I randomly dispersed the darker brown bricks. This is key to having a realistic look.

Painting Brick Fireplace

On the hearth I had to press more gently with the sponge since the mortar lines on our hearth were almost level with the bricks. I kept a wet rag near by to wipe up any wandering brick paint.

Painting Brick Fireplace
Close up picture of the bricks.
Notice how the white specks showing through really make the bricks
look like they are re-claimed and rustic.
Painting Brick Fireplace
After Picture
Painting Brick Fireplace
Daylight picture after decorated for the holidays.
I can’t believe what a huge difference painting the bricks made in our living room. It warmed up the space and actually made our fireplace recede into the room. Let’s take one more look at the before and after:
Painting Brick Fireplace
Side note: The latex and acrylic paint has held up great (even after several fires using our gas logs.)  If you need to paint the bricks inside the firebox, you will need to use paint that is heat tolerant.

And for those wondering how long this took. Including the prep work (cleaning, taping, mixing colors) it took about 5 hours total. Not too bad since I’m a night owl and could watch DIY network while painting!

Be careful not to put anything heavy on the hearth for a few weeks while the paint hardens.

Next up in the series: 5 Ways to Lighten up a Dark Room. 
Followed by: Painting Decorative Graphics on Your Wall.
And I saved the best for last (coming soon): Installing Antique Reclaimed Heart Pine Flooring

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The Painted Cottage – A Tour of My Favorite Store at the Beach

We just got back from a very relaxing week at the beach. The weather was perfect and our boys really enjoyed playing in the surf. I think we brought back a bit too much of the beach with us (sandy sheets, hair and toes). But, at least we had fun!

My mom and I spent an afternoon shopping at the outlets in Myrtle Beach, but not before stopping at my favorite location in Ocean Isle Beach, NC.

A place where I can look at lots of this:

Admire plenty of this:

And go ga ga for this:

All these and more can be found at The Painted Cottage.

This eclectic shop is an adorable boutique with sherbert colored walls and oodles of antiques, art and shabby chic finds. I could spend hours browsing this store and still not see everything.

Here is just a sampling of what is inside:

Did you see that white oyster shell mirror on the wall?
How about the same mirror with black oyster shells?

Very chic in black, don’t you think?
Precious blue bottles with coral and starfish lids

I just love this summery beach wreath spray painted light blue
and accented with ribbon, coral and shells.

Don’t you just love this red floral wingback chair with the starfish throwpillow?
(Realistically I know it would only last 2 minutes in my house before being plucked off
the pillow by my boys or crushed during wrestling matches.
But, I can dream about it, right?!)

A Trio of Starfish on Burlap

Another unique way to decorate with an old window and wine corks!

Whoa! I just found Daisy’s twin? She looks fab in red.

Hey, another coincidence! A chair with the same P. Kaufmann fabric
as my daisy chair and bench in my guest room (only in a different colorway.)

Let me tell you, The Painted Cottage has the best decorative chairs.
Like this blue rattan chair.

Or this shabby chic floral detailed chair
I’m crazy about this child size rustic chair with the monkey fist knot ball
And just the aqua color of this chair has me hooked
More aqua color on this vanity and clear glass lamp
Catching my breath as I spot this gorgeous aqua armoire!
I’m only pulled away from the armoire by these glass beauties.
Am I part magpie? Why am I so fixated on shiny shinies?
 
 This dresser pulled me out of my aqua fixation.
Beautiful sea foam green.
Will you look at this lampshade?! Fabric flowers sewn to the shade. Heavenly!
I can’t wait for one of you crafty readers to write up a tutorial on this.
or how about this lamp? LOVE IT, right?!
A beautiful hydrangea painting
Upon closer inspection, the flowers are actually cut magazine photos.
How clever!
The store has an abundance of signs with clever sayings.
“Barefoot is Bliss” so true!
“At the Beach we live by the currents and follow the sun”
“Dogs have owners, cats have staff”
That black bench under the throws is another headboard bench.
 This sign just kills me…get it? KILLs me. Okay, sorry, that was corny.
The crab shack
More artwork and accents

So, if you make your way down to the  southernmost beaches of North Carolina’s unique barrier islands, (or even if you are in Myrtle Beach). Take the time to stop by and visit The Painted Cottage at 6692 Beach Drive, Ocean Isle Beach, NC. (Phone ahead for hours and directions: 910-579-5995). Be sure to tell them that I sent you. (I am not paid by the Painted Cottage, I only hope they remember me next year when I go back.)

Best of all, if you haven’t had your fill of eye candy from this post, visit the shop’s website: thepaintedcottageonline.com or blog: thepaintedcottageonline.blogspot.com

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