Housy project #2

After the kitchen, the second biggest project we've accomplished was a banquette for the dining room. It is made out of two Ikea 1x4 Kallax units as the bases. Unfortunately, our dining room is not square, so we had to be creative about putting them together. Basically, we wound up sawing one of the 1x4's into a 1x3, and moving the other cube over to the other unit, so we could make one long and one short unit to fit our dining room and table better. Once those were all secure, we took plywood (cut to size), and 3" foam (also cut to size), and wrapped them together with batting, which we stapled to the back of the plywood. Then we wrapped all that with our fabric, which is a lighter canvas from Joanns, held/folded it tightly over the foam, and stapled that to the plywood as well. We are still planning to screw the plywood/pad pieces to the Kallax units, but they've been tested by my family, my bf, and I for the past week, and they more or less stay right in place even now.

I love how they turned out! Most of the cubes are being used for board game storage, and I have a bin in the end one where my table linens will be stored. I may add some sort of curtain to mask the board games, but so far, they don't bother me.





The dining table was a lucky find on Craigslist for $90, with a leaf that stores inside. The chairs are still my two old folding chairs that go with the small wooden folding table I use for historical picnics.