Footboard/Headboard Bench

It's garage sale time of year again! And that means it's a perfect time to find just the right bed to repurpose into a designer bench. I lucked out last fall when a neighbor put a twin size bed out on the curb with a "free" sign attached. I ran home, grabbed the truck, and nabbed it. (I brought home the entire bed hoping that I would be able to use the slats in the construction, but they were too short, so I had to purchase additional boards at the hardware store.) I have to admit that the headboard/footboard sat on our back porch for several months--the holidays and cold weather slowed me down a bit--but when the spring weather brought warmer days, I finally got to it.

There are a lot of great online sites with step by step instructions for how to benchify your bed, but I used this one from Addicted2Decorating. The directions were clear and easy to follow.

The only thing that I did differently was to use narrower boards for the seat. I chose to do that because I thought it would look better, but I realized the first time I sat on it that I had made a mistake. I had forgotten that narrower would also mean less sturdy, and the boards sagged when anyone sat on them. So I ended up gluing and screwing a brace under the seat for added strength. You can see it between the seat boards and the front apron:

It was a fun and relatively easy project, one that I would love to do again--perhaps with a larger bed. This bench is love-seat size. The problem is. . . . where will I put all these benches?