Room for Improvement: Upholstered Bench

Martin Amado: "On today's Room for Improvement, we are shopping at one of my favorite places, the Habitat ReStore in Ft. Lauderdale where with some creativity you turn just about any item into a one of a kind piece for your home decor. Let's go check out what we can find."

Martin Amado: "The best part about shopping here is that all the proceeds help build one home a month for Habitat for Humanity, so its for a good cause."

Martin Amado: "Today, I'm looking for the perfect do it yourself project that I can make look like a million bucks, and I think I found it with this coffee table. Let's go upstairs to our workshop."

Martin Amado: "All right, welcome to my new workshop here at the restore, and here's my idea. We're basically turning this coffee table, that appears very dated at the moment into an upholstered bench. Let's begin the magic."

Martin Amado: "So the first thing that we are doing is removing the glass panels."

Martin Amado: "Here are the supplies that we are going to need. A piece of plywood cut to the same dimensions as the top, two inch high density foam, batting, fabric of your choice, spray paint, primer and of course your staple gun."

Martin Amado: "The first step is to prime the base to get it ready for our new paint color."

Martin Amado: "The design doctor is in the house. Here we go, no turning back now."

Martin Amado: "Now, we are ready to apply our new paint color an expresso brown."

Martin Amado: "We'll let this dry and in the meantime, we can begin upholstering the top."

Martin Amado: "So now, I'm applying a little bit of spray glue to hold down my foam in place."

Martin Amado: "We have the first layer, which is high density foam to make it super comfortable. We follow it with the batting and of course we finish it of with the decorative fabric."

Martin Amado: "Start in the center and work your way out towards the corners."

Martin Amado: "I know corners can be quite a challenge, so here's a very simple trick. You want to fold one side of the fabric over this way and then the extra fabric fold it right on top and you create a nice tailored edge."

Martin Amado: "This morning, the coffee table as we found it had seen better days. By removing the glass panels, painting the base and creating an upholstered seat cushion we gave it a brand new function as a bench. You can place it at the foot of the bed, in a hall way entry or you can still keep it in the living room and use it as an ottoman coffee table instead."

Martin Amado: "And there you go guys, we spent about $35 for the original dated coffee table. We spent an extra $60 in materials and now we have an upholstered bench that would easily cost you double the price somewhere else, but the best part is that we saved money because we did it ourselves. I'm Martin Amado and I'll see you next time on another Room for Improvement."

Contact: room@wsvn.com
Miami-Dade: 305-576-HOME
Broward: 954-962-HOME
Martin Amado's Website: http://www.martinamado.com/