Ikea Shelf Turned Chic Upholstered Bench
Psssst… this post *might* contain affiliate links: see my disclosure here.
When we left our old house, we had a number of storage shelves from the old playroom that didn’t have a home.  These long storage shelves fit in Martha’s room, but they were a liiiiiitle dull.  (I should mention that the fabric for this makeover was all provided by Minted. Yes… THAT Minted. Did you know they have FABRIC. Really, really great fabric!)
How to Turn a Shelf into a Bench Seat
For this makeover, I picked out a sweet and colorful fabric for Martha’s room.  I ordered this one (affiliate). Her room is a hodge podge of blues and greens and floral so these colors work well enough!  She picked the flowers for an easy bench seat update for her Ikea storage.
Shop my favorites!
Check out this video for how I quickly upholstered a piece of plywood and then attached it to that SUPER basic Ikea Expedit (discontinued but virtually identical to the newer Kallax line).
If you don’t have time for the video, I cut a piece of plywood to size, placed a length of 2″ foam on top and wrapped it with batting.
Working back and forth from side to side, I wrapped my fabric around the foam and stapled it on the bottom of the plywood.
I also added some legs to customize the piece even further.  This is a long bench so I wanted 6 legs to be sturdy enough. As sweet as the bun feet  are at Home Depot, they’re almost $10 a pop.  I opted to go for these not nearly as interesting looking ones (affiliate), but I cut them shorter and gave them a fun coat of green paint.
To attach, I opted for heavy duty top plates like this (affiliate). The plates simply screw into the shelf and then you can screw the legs right into ’em.
I attached the upholstered seat to the bench with 2 1/2″ screws through the top of the Ikea piece and then into the plywood. You obviously want to measure to make sure the screw doesn’t go *all* the way through the plywood. Ouch.
So now the bare storage bench in Martha’s room is a cozy and chic upholstered ‘window seat.’ In one short afternoon no less!
I love the fabric you picked out. How fun to see what each person is choosing.
I have a set of Kallax shelves that need legs stat, thanks to you and your ideas. 🙂 Also – I’m in love with your wood floors.
I know! There’s nothing more fun that scrolling through a great fabric website! Hopefully this can stay with her for a few years! (And yes… our floors are amazing. None of them are level…. but they’re super pretty. 🙂 ) xx
Charlotte- I’m smitten! Fabulous fabric choice… what an AMAZING bench!
Ain’t fabric great! 🙂 Can’t wait to check out everyone else’s projects!! Thanks, girl! xx
Great project! Have had something like this in mind for a while, and yours came out very pretty. Couple questions – can you recommend a staple gun for projects of this sort? How much fabric did you use (rough idea is fine). Finally, do you turn the piece over and screw through the top to get up to the plywood? Do you use a drill for that?
Thanks!!!
Hi! It’s a very easy upholstery project and makes SUCH a nice difference! I used to use the Powershot staple gun, but am a definite convert to a pneumatic stapler… but that requires a compressor. So a bigger deal. For this project, I used maybe 1.5 yards… 2 to be safe? The bench was wider than the width of fabric so I had to run the fabric lengthwise… only important if your pattern will look funny going side to side that way. And yes! I flipped the bench over, made sure I knew how thick the top of the bench was and how thick the plywood from the upholstered seat was and used screws that were just shorter than these two measurements so they didn’t poke all the way through the seat. Make sense? And I DID use a drill. If you don’t have a drill, I bet you could use adhesive velcro to hold the seat in place? Or maybe nails? Good luck!
Thank you! Love the velcro idea for the bench. That is totally my speed.
Love this! I have a similar bench that I added legs to it for added height and to give something other than the box feel. Super cute fabric choice!
Thanks, girl! I *wish* I could have justified the bun feet… oh well! xx
Sometimes you find things just when you need them! I’ve had an idea like this in mind and you showed me a simple way to get it done. Where did you get the shelves and do you think it can hold a couple of adults at one time? Thank you!
HA! YES… these would definitely hold some adults. And I suspect you can find similar shelves at places other than Ikea, but you’re right… these are from the big blue and yellow box store. Good luck!
ok…it says IKEA! Readin’ a little too fast.
🙂
I had the same question as Katherine about attaching the top piece. that key step shoud have been described.Are there special types of screws that hold best within pressed board furniture?
Hi Arlene, I honestly don’t know… I used screws that I had on hand that were long enough to get through the shelf but not so long to go all the way through the upholstered board. The shelf is hollow so nothing’s going to be perfect. I’m assuming that this seat won’t get a ton of jumping or torquing so all the screws will hold it in place. I’ll update the post if anything funky happens, though!