On the Bench

And now the piano bench is finished!

It started out looking pretty terrible. After twenty-nine years of use that old vinyl just cracked apart at the seams, and the foam followed suit. And then there was the repair that extended the life of the bench by thirteen times its original lifetime—so far, but also made it two-toned. (Although you could argue that the combination of bare wood and lacquered wood did match the seat.)

 The first thing to do was remove all the staples on the underside of the seat. (Well, after I removed the seat and painted the rest of the bench.)

So the blackish-grayish stuff on the right (with the big white-ish splotch) is that nasty upholstery-pellon stuff that they put on the bottoms of couches—you know, the stuff that keeps all the change  and your cell phone from falling out the bottom. It is discolored from something (a few somethings) that spilled through the top of the bench. On the left is where I already removed lots of staples. I estimated that I removed 200 to 250 staples.

I am holding two of the staples. The one on your left broke off as I tried to pull it out; the one on the right is a whole staple. Probably 80 to 85% of the staples broke when I pulled them, leaving 1/8-inch or shorter staple stubble sticking out of the wood. :-/

This is an extreme close-up. The single arrow on the left points to some staple stubble that was too short for me to grab and pull out with the pliers. The double arrow points to two staples that need to be removed. In the end I had to pound my piano bench's remaining five-o-clock shadow (at least half of the broken staples) down into the wood.

 Removing the staples was a Big Deal! It took hours!

And here's the seat, all taken apart. The foam, permanently cracked and indented from the seams in the vinyl cover; the cover itself, split and stained; and the board which, for some unknown reason, has a groove routed out on one side. I'd guess that was probably a mistake that was easily hidden under foam and upholstery.

Once the ugly upholstery was removed I filled in the groove with wood-filler. When that was dried and sanded it was time to work on the seat for real. I had looked at some upholstery fabrics, and even ordered swatches, but Bruce reminded me of a leather skirt I'd bought at the D.I. while I was in school. It was too big for me, and I didn't really want a leather skirt, but it was a couple yards of 100% real leather for eight dollars, so I got it. And stashed it away until later, when I could forget I even had it. Anyway, I cut the bottom of the skirt off (about 25-inches) to use as a cover for my new, improved piano bench.

So here's the stuff for the bench: the skirt, the foam (which I had to piece together using hot glue), and the wooden seat.

And I always do forget before and after pictures, but here is the top of the skirt, cut apart  from the rest at the seamline (you can see the loose threads hanging off of it). There's enough left to make a teeny-tiny mini skirt. A really tiny one.

After I got the foam on and the leather stapled in place I had to cover the raw edges of the leather. Normally you would use that upholstery pellon, but I didn't have any. I used black taffeta, which I have in abundance. It's tough, it doesn't stretch, it is not at all see-thru (unlike the pellon), and it looks totally lovely:

The under-side of the seat; maybe the picture doesn't do it justice, because it really does look amazing.

And now the part you've been waiting for. (Admit it, you've been dying to see this!)

before                  and                    after

Before:

After:

This makes me very happy!

And Rachel approves, too. :-)