DIY Piano Bench Makeover

5 Materials
$10
2 Hours
Easy

I picked up this old piano bench for just $5. One of my garage sale tips is to always look behind and under stuff and it happened to be tucked away the back of a pile. The veneer on the top was pealing off and it was scratched in quite a few places. It definitely needed some love and who’s up for the job?? Me!

I had planned on replacing the top and adding a bit of farmhouse charm with some reclaimed wood so the first thing I did was remove it.

The next step was getting it ready for paint with a light sanding with my palm sander. I used a 220 grit sandpaper just to dull the shiny areas a bit. We gave it a bit more stability with a brace in the middle made out of a piece of 2 x 4. It also gave us another spot to secure the new top with the nail gun.

I wanted the top to be stained not painted. We happened to have a piece of 12 x 10 x 1 rough saw pine left over from the barn and some other projects. I asked my hubby to cut it down for me in 3 equal pieces which happened to be about 4.78 inches wide each. I wanted the edges to hang over each side and the ends about 1/4 of an inch.

They have the prettiest gray patina where each board has weathered in the sun. Thank you Mother Nature! I thought that gray would look cool with the stain so I used the side that had the most gray covering the surface. I smoothed the boards down by sanding each quite a bit with the palm sander and 100 grit sandpaper. We put them on the top just to dry fit them. What a difference already, right!?

I gave the bottom another coat of paint and then it was on to staining the boards. I used Minwax stain in Honey and applied it with a cotton rag, wiping the excess off with another rag. I like using my husbands old white cotton t-shirts for this.

I love the way the stain brought out the knots in the wood and the gray tones. I also added a shelf in the same type of wood to the bottom for more storage and to give the bottom more weight. The piano bench makeover was complete and what a transformation!

I updated our foyer a while back but it needed just a tweak and the new farmhouse bench fit perfectly. 

For more information on this project and others like it, visit my blog at http://mylifeonkayderosscreek.com or find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lifeonkayderosscreek/ or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lifeonkaydeross/.

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Colleen@lifeonkayderosscreek
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  • Cindy Brown Cindy Brown on Mar 09, 2020

    I like this but im ready to do some benches on the outside. Painting and flowers. Do you have any ideas?

  • Randal Randal on Jan 29, 2021

    nice job, but I am curious about the numbers hanging on the wall, is it out of order for reason? Or is someone bad at math :0)

  • Mary Jane Beswick Rees Mary Jane Beswick Rees on Jan 28, 2022

    Why not just use the bench top and retain the storage?

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