Small benches are very easy to makeover. I buy a lot of them. It takes very little time to make them new again and I often use leftover scraps of fabric from other projects for the benches. This project came from someone else's leftover fabric.
I picked up this bench at an estate auction. It was solid but the fabric (like most vintage benches) was outdated and dusty—pretty gross.
This is a close up of the fabric—classic 1950s/60s nubby upholstery fabric.
I started by removing the legs. They are wrought iron and were very solid. I sanded them a bit—they didn't need much and then I hit it with a coat of gloss black spray paint just to freshen it up. While that was drying, I started on the seat of the bench. My brother was at my house that day so I enlisted his help. We removed all the tacks and staples. Fortunately, there was only one layer of fabric. We removed all the foam padding as well.
The new fabric was a find from Goodwill. I often look there for remnants of upholstery fabric, because upholstery fabric at a fabric store is expensive! I found two pieces of this cotton duck fabric. Each piece was about two yards and they were only .99 cents each. I bought both. This stool won't require much at all so I will have plenty of this fabric left for other projects.
It's a beautiful charcoal grey color with a white design. Very pretty.
I added a new layer of foam and batting and quickly upholstered the seat, so quickly I didn't get any photos of that.
After the legs were dry, I reattached them to the seat.
Then it was finished. Overall, this took less than an hour. I did let the legs dry overnight before I reattached them, but all-in-all, the total number of minutes to do this was under an hour.
So now it's a cute bench with fresh padding and fabric. It's small enough to tuck away in any space for extra seating. I love the quick and easy projects. Now, on to the next one!