Confessions of a Bench Warmer

My husband and I used to have an 1893 Schubert upright cabinet grand piano, which we were given for free. It was gorgeous, nice wood carvings and overlays. It didn't keep in tune very well, but you could still play it without wincing overly much. At some point in its existence before it made its way to us, though, someone had dropped the sucker and busted the feet off the front. Inexplicably, no one had ever replaced them, so the keys and woodwork on the front were just sort of...hanging...off the piano.

Over time and subsequent moves before we got it, gravity caused the front to drop even further, and this started to push out the sides of the piano. Once in our possession, Z and I were interested in restoring it, so we contacted several people about doing just that. We were advised by a man who does business refinishing and restoring old pianos not to even invest in the thing, unless it had some sort of sentimental family value. It would cost far too much to bring it back to its former glory, and we could buy a new piano for less than it would take to fix everything wrong with this one. We appreciated his candor, and enjoyed the piano "as-was" for several years.

The thing was monstrously heavy; it was made of solid thick slabs of oak, and weighed somewhere between 650 and 1000 pounds, we never did find out for sure. It took six full grown men with skids and wheels to move the piano into the house; the day it suddenly gave a little more and my infant daughter was sitting right under the keyboard was the day that my husband and I, with my bum hip, moved it out to the porch by ourselves. We didn't want it to squash our kids. That was the death knell for the instrument -- one side had nearly completely separated by that point.

Being the industrious wench that I am, I set to it with screwdrivers -- on my back porch, in January, in Maryland -- and harvested some parts before it was dragged to the elephant graveyard. Bear in mind that this piano was built in the days before Phillips head screws, and over 100 years of aging had cemented those flathead screws in place. My drill did not work, the torque was breaking off the screws in the wood if I set it high enough to actually move the old screws. I had to do it all by hand so I could feel the breaking point. I actually broke a couple of screwdrivers!

We sold the ivory and ebony keys on E-Bay, and kept the wood from the top and front of the cabinet for a future project. I wanted to build a bench out of it, I just thought that would be really neat. Two years passed....

And, spurred by the prospect of 7 extra people in our house for over a week this year, decided we needed some extra seating. So it got built on Thanksgiving day, prior to our family's arrival two days later on Saturday. Here's the finished project:





It fits absolutely perfectly as a window seat -- no cutting required! We did have to do some adjustments for the sides, though, because of the existing windowsill and a non-working electric baseboard heater that runs along the wall. The top is hinged, so we can store toys, blankets, whatever in the narrow space between the wall and the front of the bench. The back half of the bench is over the windowsill, and screwed down using the existing screwholes in the top of the piano.

The kids absolutely LOVE it -- they actually fight over who gets to sit in the windowseat, although in truth they can both fit in there at the same time just fine. A loves to climb up with a blanket, and just lay there and look at the cars going by, or the cows across the street.

I'm not a big floral-y person normally, but this fabric actually works with the walls, curtains, and other furniture in the living room -- and the red hallway that connects to the living room. It suits the look of the old wood, too.

But here's where the "confession" comes into play: I am a horrid seamstress. It takes me hours to do the simplest tasks, sewing is just not one of my talents -- with a machine or by hand. Knowing that family was arriving the next day, by the time I bought the foam and fabric -- I had less than a day. And this would probably take me at least a week to complete properly, allowing time to swear (internally) and rip out seams as necessary. (Since the bench was built on Thanksgiving, I bought the cushion materials on Black Friday. Yikes. I actually crossed myself before leaving the house and heading to JoAnn Fabrics. Having worked retail this time of year, I usually try to avoid shopping the two days after Thanksgiving at all costs, I just do not enjoy being shoved, elbowed, etc.)

So here's what I came up with:



I wrapped the foam up like a present and safety-pinned the bottom all the way down, and the ends, and then put that side down against the wood. It worked out just fine, and there were no bad words involved at all! And no one ever suspected. : )