Elementary Organization: xalted x-bench.

Us dear Texans had our first snow of the season yesterday. By snow, of course we mean remarkably cold rain. We didn't handle it too well.

Hopefully, everyone made it to their destination of choice yesterday and we will all got back to our humble abodes in order to hibernate from the blustery temps.
In order to brighten these gloomy snow-days-but-we-still-have-school-days, I thought I would share some new seating I created over the Christmas break!
I absolutely love it, but due to its height and width, underneath the table was looking rather bare and exposed. Poor Parsons.
Then, while doing a bit of Christmas shopping, I popped into Tuesday Morning to check out their new inventory....helloooo x-bench! I had to force myself to look past the zazzy zebra and see the potential within. You might have to do the same.
Since it was a misty day, I took all of the metal pieces out to the garage and gave them a light first coat of this lovely "Lagoon" spray paint by Rustoleum.

Over the summer, I bought and covered a Parsons console table in a textured, grass cloth fabric and placed it in our entry/formal living room.

Ever since I put the table in its spot, I have been dying to put some x-benches underneath to serve as extra seating in the room, but really just to cover up the lamp cords and provide a nice pop of color in the space. Knowing this, I have stalked all of my favorite bargain bins for the perfect benches, but I just wasn't finding them! I was completely open to painting, re-covering, or anything to create the perfect seating for the space, but still nothing for the price I was wanting.

Here's the super news, though: the x-bench was a whopping $30. You better believe I loaded up two of those benches faster than you can say "zazzy zebra".

On my drive home, I began brainstorming new paint colors and fabric choices for the benches. I was even further enthused when I remembered that I bought this Robert Allen fabric for another project on the clearance aisle at Joann's for $3 per yard! I had planned to use it for a project in our kitchen, but I decided the fabric would coordinate much more in the living room - don't you agree?

The manufacturers of these products must have WANTED me to completely re-do them, because the benches came completely disassembled, taking a full step out of my job!

While the spray paint was drying, I came back inside to work on re-covering the cushions. I laid the cushion face-down on my fabric so I could trim the fabric down to size.

Not wanting the zebra print to show through the striped fabric, I then measured an equal amount of cotton lining as the striped fabric.

Then, it was time to wrap and staple! I first stapled along the long edge of the cushion to be sure that the stripes were running horizontally, rather than jabberwalky.

I then stapled along the opposite edge, being sure to pull the fabric tightly to prevent wrinkling.

Then, I folded the corners to make as flat of a tuck as possible...

...and finished stapling the remaining sides.

Voila!

I repeated the exact same steps on the second cushion, so after about 30 minutes of re-covering, I had two brand new cushions!

After allowing the first, light coat of spray paint to dry for several hours, I very lightly sanded any rough spots, and then applied two more light coats of paint, allowing several hours between coats to dry. These were the absolute easiest things to paint!

Once all of the metal pieces were dry, all that was left was assembly! Following the assembly instructions produced an absolutely fabulous result!

I placed the x-benches underneath the Parsons console table, and stood back to admire the beauty!