DIY: Upholstered Piano Bench

Wow! I guess I can remove the term “blogger” from my resume as I’m pretty much as inconsistent as can be…somehow it’s been 3 months since my last blog post, but it feels good to be back!

With all the new features on IG these days, my Instagram has definitely replaced a lot of blog posts for me, but I plan to still share more in depth tutorials and posts here from time to time.

Recently (okay like a year ago!) I made a new seat for our piano bench and I loved how it turned out. I wanted to share a quick step-by step because it was so much easier than I anticipated and looks anything but “home-made”.

Side note: I have absolutely zero experience with upholstering furniture so if I can do this, you surely can!

BEFORE:AFTER:*See my full Piano Makeover post HERE.

First off, the supplies. You won’t need much!

Fabric: I ordered a yard of upholstery fabric from West Elm (did you know they sale fabric?!! Just search for: “fabric by the yard” on their site). You will need a piece of fabric about 12 inches longer and 12 inches wider than the surface you are covering. You can use any fabric you’d like but I strongly recommend a nice durable upholstery fabric.
You will also need a roll of upholstery foam. It is very inexpensive and can be found at most crafts stores. I used a 1″ thick foam from Hobby Lobby, but a variety of sizes are available.
Heavy duty staple gun and staples! This tool is an absolute must for this project. I found mine from Amazon HERE.

You will also need a tracing marker and scissors (or a rotary cutter and mat).

To begin, you will need to unscrew or remove the top piece of the piano bench from the base. For our bench, it was simply a matter of unscrewing the clasp/hinge that held the two pieces together. Obviously all benches and furniture pieces will be unique, but if possibly, removing the seat from the base will make this much easier.Next I simply laid the bench top on the foam and traced the shape with a black sharpie. Then I cut out the foam along the traced line.Next up, cut a piece of fabric about slightly bigger than your foam piece. Depending on how thick your foam is, you will need 3 to 6 extra inches on each side to wrap around. To do this, I simply laid my foam and bench top on the fabric and measured out a few extra inches for wrapping.After your fabric is cut, once more place the foam piece and the bench top centered on the fabric.Now fold the long edges up and wrap around the board, while pulling tautly, tack in place with the staple gun. Repeat on the short sides, being careful to tuck and fold the corners in snuggly as you secure them in place.

Re-attach the top piece to the base and you’re all set.

One more BEFORE:…and AFTER:This was a fairly easy and inexpensive project and exactly what we needed to not only make our old piano bench look updated, but a whole lot more comfy as well. Let me know if you have any questions and best of luck in your own DIY-ing adventures!