DIY July: how to create functional and stylish bench seating
Looking to add a functional yet stylish feature to your living or dining room? We’ve collaborated with Mikhailla Fitzgerald this DIY July to transform her space with bench seating that doubles as storage. Hear from Mikhailla and watch as she takes us through the process.
This DIY July, we’ve joined forces with Mikhailla Fitzgerald to transform her living and dining space with functional yet stylish bench seating that doubles as storage!
hear from Mikhailla
As a part of our renovation, we tackled some of our bigger spaces first, but finishing the lounge and dining room was something on our goal list to do before the end of 2024. Although it wasn’t a ‘big task’ on our list, we knew that it would be one that had a significant functional and design impact on our space. We wanted to create a built-in entertainment unit to add additional storage to our home with the entertainment unit designed to then wrap around a nook in our wall into a ‘bench-seat’ design that would become our dining nook.
We knew we wanted to utilise kaboodle for this project, as I had tried the online 3D kaboodle planner and it proved super easy to construct the visual aspect, price it and then head in-store to verify my colour selections before ordering.
how-to
step 1: After measuring your space, logon to the 3D kaboodle planner online to create and construct your space.
step 2: Select and place your cabinets. We used 600mm 1 drawer base cabinets. Then we used three customisable multi-purpose panels that are cut perfectly to size for the tops of the cabinets.
step 3: Select your colours. I created a duplicate of my space and weighed up a few option before settling on olive grove doors and panels after I explored the samples in-store at Bunnings.
step 4: Consult with a Bunnings expert to check your design and ensure you have selected everything you need before placing your order.
step 5: The base cabinets arrived first so we made a start on those using the instructions that come in the box. Conveniently, you can pick these cabinets up straight off the shelf at Bunnings too if you want to get started right away.
step 6: Once we received the panels, we fixed these to the tops of our base cabinets and finished them off with kickboards.
step 7 (optional): We also created some of our own holes in the back of the TV unit cabinet to run through electrical power points into the draw to gain additional use for storing our TV box to keep the space looking tidy and wire-free.
As complete DIY cabinetry rookies, I will let you know there was a little bit of cutting, gluing, and drilling involved so ensure to have some tools handy to make the job faster, and efficient! This was a DIY Team effort for myself and my husband, and total construct time was about 8 hours.
As both inexperienced in this task, we were able to learn some new skills and test our capabilities which made this job more exciting as a reminder “we can try new things, and help to save in our budget by doing it ourselves”. I loved bringing this project to life as it has made such a huge impact on our space from extra storage, to style and helping to streamline our living room into our newly crafted dining nook!