From Bed to Bench

I internalized the cardinal rule "Waste not - Want not" growing up - maybe because my parents were raised during the war years - WWII that is...

I also internalized my own motto which is, "How hard can it be?"

My parents' legacy is a good one for our frugal times - reusing-recycling...it just makes sense.

My motto?

Well, mostly it inspires me to try things I wouldn't normally since I don't actually have the skills it takes.

Case in point:

We bought a house out in the desert and like every new homeowner were cash-poor after the close of escrow. So I turned to Craigslist to buy bed frames. $150 later, I owned some scruffy but serviceable queen-sized bed frames.

Sure I had to sand and smooth the pine bed. And the “now blue” bed was so damaged that paint was really the only solution. A quart of turquoise later, all was well.

But that was last year.

This year, the bedrooms have become an office and a guestroom which is home to a double-size mattress so the Craigslist beds were bound for a garage sale...until...I thought they could become benches - daybed sized benches but attractive and largely free if I could use what scraps of materials I had already...I mean, how hard could it be?

I cut the footboard in half and attached the halves to the headboard to serve as arms. Then I cut the side rails to fit the distance between the arms. I tacked down some discarded chipboard and voila! Benches!