Building a Corner Bench Seat with Storage

Our home has an ‘area’ in the middle of it, just outside the laundry and guest toilet. It serves no purpose. It’s just an ‘area’.

For months I’ve thrown ideas around, all but one was rejected by my husband. It was a corner bench seat that had storage for school bags and shoes. A mud room/drop off zone for my sons assortment of school/sports/extra curricular ‘stuff’.

I also desperately wanted to hide the internet cables that were hanging down from the kitchen bench. These had to go!

In true Jo fashion, off I went to Ikea for inspiration. It wasn’t long before I found a combination of kitchen cabinets that would work in the space I had. An added bonus was that they matched our current kitchen.

I bought two of the metod cabinets with shaker doors. These were the perfect height for what I had in mind.

Now to start the base. I made the base the exact same size I wanted the bench to be, by doing this I can nail the skirting to it easily at the end.

I had to find the right combination of timbers to be the same height as my skirting board. Then it was as simple as cutting the timbers to make the L-shape and screwing them together. Just remember if you are making a long bench you’ll need to add supports in between to properly support your cabinets.

You’ll then need to assemble the cabinets. After assembling 26 while doing my kitchen, this was the easiest part. I had a power point I needed to access, so while assembling my cabinet I had to cut an access hole for this. Just remember that the cabinet will sit on the frame so when you are marking out the hole be sure to have it sitting on the frame to get the correct position.

Once that was done I placed the cabinets on the frame and marked out where my cover panel needed to go. I attached the cover panel and place the cabinet back onto the frame. I checked the levels to ensure the cabinets were sitting straight and the attached the cabinets to the frame and to each other.

I did this by screwing from inside the cabinet into the frame at numerous points in the cabinet. Then I attached the cabinets to the wall, again by screwing from the inside of the cabinet into the wall. I also attached the end panel to each side of the cabinets.

Now that the bench was in place. It was time for the finishing touches. I cut the skirting board to fit around the bottom of the bench seat and then attached it with glue and nails. Then gave it a couple coats of paint.

I went to Clarke Rubber where they cut a piece of foam to the size I needed and then off to Spotlight to buy fabric to make a cover.

And here’s the final product. It’s exactly what I had in my mind and works so well.

UPDATE: I made some additions to this seat. Read Part Two here.

Thanks for reading.

Jo