When space is at a
premium in your house, then building some bench
seating with storage can solve a couple
of problems at once. A bench seat can give
you a new seating area, as well as giving you
quite a bit of handy storage space. And the best thing, you can
make it yourself, easy as. I'll show you how to build a
corner bench seat with storage, and the box cushions too. Now, the easiest way
to start this project is by making
yourself a template. Now, the standard
height for a bench seat is between 400 and
450 millimeters high. So I'm going to make mine 400
millimeters high, because I've got a relatively thick squab
that I'm going to put on later. And my bench seat is
going to be 1,880 long. The width of my seat
will be 480 millimeters. You can make this
whatever works for you. And I'm going to put a 15
degree angle on the front, so when you're sitting on it,
your heels don't hit or scuff the front of the board. It's also a little
bit more comfortable. That angle leaves our bottom
measurement at 380 millimeters. Now, so I'm going to
start marking this out on a sheet of ply. I'm going to mark this
out on the bottom 380 millimeters, and the height,
I've got 400 millimeters. Now, the top of
my seat, I'm going to make 480 millimeters
wide, so effectively, that gives me a 15 degree angle. So that there is going to
be the shape of our seat. Now, before I cut this
out, what I'm going to do is take off the thickness
of my front panel, so I'm going to use so 18ml
ply for our front panel and also for the top. So what I'm going to do is just
use a scrap piece of timber, mark the thickness of
that, and take that off that top
measurement as well. OK. So this template is going to set
me up for the rest of the job. Now, the easiest way to cut
this is by using a circular saw, because most people have
one of these at home. So what I'm going to
use is a piece of timber that I'm going to clamp
to my work surface, and use that as a guide on
the edge of my circular saw. Now, to get that measurement,
what I'm going to do is measure from the
inside of my blade to the outside of the table. Now, I know that's
130 millimeters, so what I'm going to day
is mark 130 millimeters from our line top and bottom. And I'm just going to clamp
a piece of timber on there. So now I'm pretty
much ready to use the edge of this piece
of timber as a guide. The saw's going to sit
on that, and I'm just going to run through and
that'll hit our line nicely. Now, when you're making any
cuts with your circular saw, you just want to go slightly
deeper than your work surface. So I've set that to just
over 20 millimeters, so I know it's only just
going to go through. And then that way you've got
the most amount of control. [CIRCULAR SAW SOUND] And then do the same
for the other edge. And we're going to need six
of these panels in total. I'm going to start off
first in the corner here. And I'm going to
screw that straight to the wall with a
screw in each corner. Now, the overall length of
my bench seat on this side is 1,880 off that wall. Just going to mark 1,880. That's the overall width. And I'm just going to
square off our back wall, and then I'll
plumb that line up. I'll take my template, and
I'll put it on my 1,880 mark. I can mark the height
on there, and I'll just mark on the inside. So I now know a length on the
inside of my other template to the inside of this
one, so I can cut a 60 by 20 batten that's
gonna fix to the wall. So here's a piece of 60 by 20
I've already cut to length, and I'm just going to
screw that to the wall. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now you just want
to make sure that is nice and straight before
screwing it off on your studs. OK, the next thing
we need to do is cut a floor plate out of exactly
the same timber our 60 by 20. But on this one,
we're going to have to cut a 15 degree angle the
same as the front of our box seat. So if I was to put that
there on my plumb line and on my square line. So all we have to do
is cut our floor plate. So once again, I'm just going
to use my circular saw to rip an angle on my floor plate. Now, to do that, I'm just going
to set this to 15 degrees. OK. So I'm just going to lock
that off nice and tight. And then I'm going
to use my guide that comes with your circular
saw when you buy them. And we're just going
to fix that through, and I'm going to
cut this back edge. Now, I've just screwed
this to a piece of timber so it's nice and
secure, and I've set my saw so just a little
bit thicker than the thickness of the timber. [CIRCULAR SAW SOUND] A wee little tip, when you
are using a circular saw, you never ever want to put
a foot or a hand behind you saw, because that's the way the
motor wants to go, backwards. You could lose a foot or a hand. Always keep your hand in front,
if you do want to hold it down. [CIRCULAR SAW SOUND] Cool. So I've just cut my floor plate. So what I'm going
to do, I'm just going to fix that
hard onto the floor, flush with the front
of my template. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] And take my other end
plate, and I'm just going to fix that to the wall. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now, all I'm going to do is
line these two points up, and fix our floor plate down. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Sweet. Now we're ready to cut our front
board that goes on the seat. Now, using our
template once again, I can actually measure the
angle on that front there, and that'll give us the
length for our front board. What I'm going to use
is a track saw here. These are great if you've got
a lot of plywood cutting up, or any sort of sheet material. You don't have to use a
big cumbersome table saw. These are super handy. It pretty much just looks
like a circular saw, and the grooves, here, just
slot straight into the track. So what I'm going to do
is set that to 15 degrees just like I did on
my circular saw, but I'm using our track to
give me a nice straight line. And I've just got a clamp here. That goes underneath our track. Clamp that down. Now I've got a really
nice straight edge to give me a perfectly
straight line. [TRACK SAW SOUND] OK. So I've already cut my board. I put some glue on there. I'm just gonna finish
off the gluing here. And we're just going to attach
that to our front panels. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] So the next thing we need to
do is put our center panel in. Now, these panels are
exactly the same as our ends. The only difference
is we're going to have to chop out for our
wall and our floor plate. So I've just taken an
off-cut of my 60 by 20, and I've marked that on
the top corner there. And using a hand saw,
I've chopped that out. And I've done exactly
the same for the bottom. I've just taken an off
cut of my angled piece. I've put that on there,
and chopped that out. So that's just
gonna slip straight into the middle of our seat. The reason why we're doing this
is so it strengthens that seat, and it doesn't bow out at all. OK. So I've measured the
center of my box. Put a line on the
back board there. Now I'm just gonna square
that across to the front. And then I'll just
square that down. Now just apply a little
bit of PVA to the edges. [BANGING SOUND] [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] OK, I'm not going
to put any fixings at this stage at the
back, because when I put my top board on, that
will secure it in place then. OK, the next thing
we're going to do is start building
the top of our seat. Now, to do that, I'm just
using our 60 by 20 again. I've already pre-drilled
a hole, which is really important with
pine, especially on the ends, because it's really easy to
split putting a screw in. So I've pre-drilled the holes,
I've placed some screws in, and I've already put
some PVA on the back. So what I'm going to do, sit
that on, screw that down, and I'll do exactly
the same for the front. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now I've just cut some pieces
that go in between our front and backboard, and pre-drilled
a hole using my 3ml drill bit. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now all we have to do is the
same for the other two pieces. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now, because my seats are also
going to double as storage, I'm going to cut a
couple of sheets of ply that have got to sit in the
top here, so I can lift up-- I can either hinge those, or
have them sitting in loose. So I'm just going to take
another piece of 60 by 20, and I'm going to fix it to
the underside of our boards. So all I've done is
measured from the inside of our front board
to our back plate. So I've just cut that
a couple of mil less so I can just get it in. That will slide
underneath, and I'm just going to screw and glue
that from the underside. And I'm going to do that
for all four pieces. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] OK, I've just cut my lids. Now, how I got to
that dimension-- I measured the distance
in between our sides, and then I just took
off four millimeters. And I did the same for the end. That way, it just sits in there. I've got about a two
millimeter gap around it, and allows me to get
it out nice and easy. Now, I will say, drilled
a hole through the end. Now I've come in 100
millimeters by 50 at the front. So I'm going to show
you how to do that. So I'm using a 35 millimeter
Forstner drill bit. You could use a spade, but these
just give superior cutting. So I've already marked on my
board 15mm up by 100mm in. And I've just got
a 1.5mm drill bit, and I'm just going to put a
nice fine little pilot hole all the way through to save me
measuring and marking the back. Now, Now the reason I've
drilled a pilot hole is purely because I'm going
to use my Forstner drill bit to go halfway
through the board, flip the board over, and then
come from the other side. If I drill all the
way through, now it's just gonna blow out the
back and be pretty ugly. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now, this is a trim
router, and I've got a 3mm radius bit in it. So what this is
going to do it's just going to dress up all the sides. You could use a bit of
sandpaper and a block plane, but this is really inexpensive
and it does a great job. [ELECTRIC ROUTER SOUND] Use your trim router
and orbital sander to tidy the edges on
the seat, as well. [ELECTRIC SANDER SOUND] Repeat the process
for the second side, but don't forget
to cut a 15 degree angle where the two seats meet. For this inner end panel,
make sure it's plumb, then fix it in place. [HAMMERING SOUND] [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] Now, I've already
cut the front panel. Now, the way I've got
that it's pretty simple. So I'm just taking
my template piece-- it's exactly the
same as our ends-- I've just turned
that upside down. That there fits in there
absolutely beautiful, because it's exactly the
same angle, but upside down. So all I've done is
taken my sheet of ply, I've cut the angles
on it, and I've just left it about 100mm
longer at this stage. And all I've done is mark
that angle on the end, and cut it off. So that just sits
in there nicely. The next thing I have to do
is come down this end here. Just got to make sure that my
end panel is nice and plumb. OK. Now I'll just mark
the back of that, chop it, and fix it in place. Use a bit of PVA. Then glue and screw
the front panel. [ELECTRIC DRILL SOUND] 710. Measure, mark, and fit the
center panel, the support plates, and the lids. And the job's done. Now I'm gonna teach
you how to make a box cushion like I've done here. So I'm going to make
one for over there. Time to measure up. So I've measured my distance
from my box seat that's sitting there already to
the end of my bench seat, which is 1,410 long. So I'm going to
take 10mm off that, because I've got the batting
rolling around either side. Now, my width is
480 wide, so I'm going to take 10
off that, as well. And also, I've got some foam. And a really good tip
here, because the foam is so expensive, is to buy foam
mattress from a rubber or foam supplier. They might even cut
it to size for you. So the first thing I need to
do is attach that onto here. So I'm just using
a spray adhesive, and I'm just going to put a
liberal amount on our ply. And I'm also going to
put some on our foam. So all we do is put those
two sections together, and it's almost like
an instant bond. So we'll just start
from one end-- make sure it's nice and square-- and just roll it down,
following the edge of my ply. Because once that goes
down you haven't really got a lot of time
to work with it. OK, the next thing we
need to do is attach our material and our batting. I've laid my material face
down and then my batting. I've pre-cut these to allow for
about 60 millimeters rollover. So the first thing I'm gonna do
is roll one side onto our ply. And I'm using 12
millimeter staples. [STAPLING SOUND] Now, if you like, you can give
yourself a nice line to go to. [STAPLING SOUND] And don't be afraid,
as you can see, to give it plenty of
staples, because we want to stretch that other
side around nice and tight. [STAPLING SOUND] So for this side, be sure
to pull the fabric tight. [STAPLING SOUND] Now, just before I fold this
end up, what I'm going to do is just cut this little
section of batting off. Otherwise, we're going
to get a double up of it, and it's going to
make it too thick. [SCISSORS CUTTING] So I'm going to fold
one corner up at a time. Now, what we're trying to aim is
for a corner where there's nice and 90 degrees out there
with no cleats in it, so that's looking pretty tidy. [STAPLING SOUND] Now just do the same
for the other end. Now, I've already attached
this one back rest, and I've allowed a gap of
about 120, 130 millimeters. You can put it at
whatever suits you. So what I've done
is attach Velcro to the back of my box cushion
and that's tacky on one side, and I've put a couple of level
marks on my wall already. Now, the good thing
about using Velcro, a couple of different reasons. If the kids were to drop
anything down there, really easy to remove. Or if you wanted
to paint that wall, it's really easy to take off. So all I have to do, line
that up with my level marks. And tickety-boo. And that's the job done. Now you've got yourself
some useful storage space, and a place to sit back
and admire your handy work.
