Salvaged Chair French Bench: Old House Journal Feature & Video!

I am beyond excited today to announce two things surrounding our popular tutorial about making a French-style bench from salvaged chairs that has been featured on sites like Apartment Therapy and Knock-Off Decor.

Magazine Feature

The first is that you can see our DIY salvaged chair bench in the current August edition of Old House Journal!!

I know, can you believe it?

This is the second time we’ve been featured in a national magazine (the first was our paper bag floor technique that was in Cottages and Bungalows) and I’m just as giddy as the first time.

Look – there we are on page 62, right next to steal & deals – appropriate, no?

And here’s the article! Our bench is featured in the Salvage It! monthly column in OHJ and we provided the photo (actually lots of photos, but they only used one) and helped clarify the steps. It’s so fun seeing your name in print like this.

But the cost break-down?

That totally cracked us up – as if we’d ever pay $105 for a diy project like this!

Here’s the actual cost (and I realize they were writing for people who would not have wood, batting and material laying around like we did, but still I think it’s a cheaper project):

• Original cost for chairs: $20 each – though after you’ve used them for 15 years, can you really add them to the cost of the bench? If you didn’t have broken chairs, I’m sure you could get them free from your friends who do or pay $5 at some yard sale somewhere.
• Wood: $0 – we just used pieces from our stash and made them fit.
• Paint: 1/4 of a $30 can of paint (if that) = $7.50
• Batting: $0 – just used a piece left over from some other project, but batting is closer to $7 (without a 40% coupon) for a small piece.
• Fabric: $0 – this was the funniest of all since I used a piece of painter’s drop cloth left over from this project. And we all know that a small painter’s drop cloth isn’t going to set you back $30.
• Hardware screws: $3 – we had some, but needed to buy a few more.

Total = $10.50, because I just can’t add the original chair cost in there…

That’s more like our typical DIY-project budgets!

Go here to read the article online or head to your nearest bookstore to purchase a copy!

Salvaged Chair to Bench Video

The second is a video Brian and I made that goes into more depth about the process, materials, and tools used to create this easy bench from two old, broken chairs.

You’ll definitely see first hand that we really do live by our tagline, ’embracing imperfection,’ when Brian zooms in on the huge holes I filled from the long screws used to strengthen the bench. There was no completely covering them up for this amateur woodworking duo, lol.

But I think it’s a perfect example of letting the little things go – it’s beautiful anyway, no one notices the lumps and bumps and it’s been featured lots of places.

“DIY” to us has never meant doing it just like a professional would, it means doing it good enough that we can enjoy it!

Click below to watch (and please ignore my wandering eyes in the intro – I just never know where to look!!):

Do you think you will try this DIY project?