Upcycled Bed into a Bench * old bed made into a bench

This head and foot board set had been sitting in my garage for some time. It was time to bring new life to this piece and I thought a bench would be perfect! Check out this upcycled bed into a bench.

The Steps:

If the head and foot board were the exact same size, it would have been as simple as cutting one in half and mounting to the solid piece. This set unfortunately had different dimensions for each piece, so it was a bit more complicated. Circled above in red is where we had to add wood and cut the profile.

I wanted to distress this piece a little bit I didn’t want the natural maple to show through. So I sprayed the areas I’d be distressing with Rust-oleum‘s Satin Espresso. Then I applied wax on those same areas so the white paint wouldn’t adhere as well during the next step (just a little distressing trick).

I use a #4 steel wool to stand up well to the wax and white paint. I think a 0000 steel wool would have given it a softer distressing.

You can see I still ended up rubbing through a little of the Espresso and exposed the maple, but for the majority the distressed areas stood up well as the darker shade I was aiming for. I used a paint and top coat mix from ML Campbell to finish the bench. Now I am ready for the seat!

I stained pallet boards three different colors and then sanded them to give the appearance of natural wear. Then I top-coated them all to create some uniformity.

And voila! She’s all done! Where would you put this beauty?