Upcycled Coffee Table turned Entryway Bench Part I

This following project took almost three weeks and lots of patience to complete. When we last spoke about this project, I was helping my brother redecorate his apartment in downtown calgary. Apart from the usual furniture hunting, I also wanted to give him something that I got my hands dirty in.
Enter the Entryway bench.
I have always wanted to create one from an old coffee table. Just for a challenge and that it was. Now  the Bench is complete and at its final destination. The furniture piece fits like a charm.
For a long time before this makeover, I used to see these old 50s or 60s coffee tables that were big and chunky and thought that the frame was ideal for a bench. The solid wood build would allow the weight of a person to sit on top without even a flinch. So when my brother told me that he is searching for an attractive furniture piece to store all of his shoes at the front entry, I knew that the makeover was going to happen for real.  So as one of his housewarming presents, I got down to completing this project.

When I was searching for the perfect coffee table on Kijiji, I knew I wanted two things:
1. Some open shelving to store boots and other shoes and some closed for easy clutter control
2. Strong build

Those requirements were met in this little number for a mere 10$.

The top was covered with a smooth laminate that definitely could not be restained, which was my original plan, so on to paint it was. I started with cleaning and lightly sanding the whole furniture piece. Following this, I primed the whole piece with extra adhesion primer.

After several thin coats of primer inside and outside the whole table, I was ready to start painting.  In between each coat, I lightly sanded the whole surface. I used CIL Wash and Wear Kitchen and Bath Paint in a Double Espresso colour which I already had on hand.  After completing all four sides and the bottom toe kicks, it was onto curing the paint which took close to a week.

Shoe Organizer
To create the shoe organizers, I used some scrap mdf pieces that I had left over from a previous project. But you could just as easily use some new mdf or wood that you purchase from a Home Improvement store. At this point, designing and measuring is extremely important. Know the dimensions of your furniture piece. Then include the thickness of your shelves in your measurements. We decided to have each shoe cubby as a 5'' by 5'' but a 6'' (width) x 6'' (height) would have been more suitable. I designed the shoe organizer as I wanted it to appear and measured each shelf and segment  that would be required.
We got the cuts made from RONA according to our specs. It is really important for the pieces to fit the space perfectly and be able to slip right into the cabinet. This makes the shelving stable.

We had to fill in a 3/4 inch gap and make final adjustments (cuts) to make the cubbies fit into the cabinet. We did not take into consideration that small gap which essentially made it impossible to slip the cubby structure into place. 

To assemble the cubbies, take a look at the following diagram:
Consider that shelf B is your main horizontal shelf, we prehammered two nails to each side to attach the segments. One on each side pointed down and one on each side pointed up. Shelf A and C were then hammered onto the exposed nail heads. Repeat until the desired number of cubbies are achieved. Since our shelf pieces were cut by RONA, the completed cubby structure slipped in a bit too snug but after a bit of pushing and shoving and a bit of denting, we got it in there.

A few of the cubby segments needed a bit of reinforcement with wood glue and this really got them stuck for good.

A bit of touch up painting was required at this point.

Regarding the doors, I liked the inlaid detailing but the brass pattern was really not my style. Apart from the Double Espresso paint, I used some black acrylic paint for the inlay to let the detailing bounce off the page. Two new door handles purchased from the Home Depot.  The old hinges were in fine working order so we just reattached those doors and we were left with this pretty little thing.

In hindsight, I should have retrofitted the shoe organizers before I even started painting to avoid small dings where touch ups were applied. I left the inside of the doors unpainted but should have painted them for a professional finish and would have like to paint the inside of the cabinet but the chipboard interior made it impossible. All in all though, I think it was a pretty successful project. 

In Part 2, I will show you how I made the cushion that sits on top of the bench. A little hint, the black colour shows up again in a really big way.