Sunroom Shines: DIY Breakfast Nook Benches

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Hello!

Sigh, the sunroom 🙂 aka my favorite room in the house. When we bought the house I knew there was character and cheer waiting to reveal itself in this little room. I also knew that one day I wanted to create a breakfast nook back there with some built-in benches and it finally happened!

Here’s a reminder of what it looked like in the sunroom when we moved in. Not very glamorous eh? I mean it could only get better!

 

Prior to building the benches we did install new windows, and insulate and drywall the area below them. When we get the rest of the sunroom completed I’ll share that process with you, promise 🙂

So before we bought our supplies we measured and figured out how big we wanted the benches to be. Then I drew the design for them. When living in a small house with limited storage you seize every opportunity to gain some that you can, and I was excited these benches would serve that purpose as well. After figuring out and purchasing all the materials we needed we got to work.

We built the frames first. One of ours is 48 inches long and the other is 60 inches long. Both are 19 inches high and 20 inches deep to accommodate for throw pillows. My nephew even stopped by to help us out 🙂

 

 

After the frames were built we measured and cut the sides and tops out of a 4×8 sheet of project plywood. Holding each piece in place with wood clamps made this way easier to measure for the next piece.

 

 

Then we got to work on the trim and the top openings. I wanted the trim on the bench to match the house’s interior trim so that the benches would feel authentic to the house.

 

Before we attached everything we took the frames inside so that they could first be attached to the walls.

 

Then we did a trial fit of all the sides before we actually did attach them to the frame just to be sure it all fit well. After living in an old house we’re all too familiar with just how crooked walls can be 😉

 

After this we started attaching the sides and the piano hinges for the top. We made sure to leave equal spacing around the top opening using shims.

Next we attached the trim around the top and bottom of benches. 1x4s for the top and 1x6s for the bottom.

 

After all the wood working was done I painted everything a nice crisp white and caulked all the gaps so that it would appear seamless. You can see we did gain a ton of storage where there was once none. This came in handy almost immediately as it was soon after this when we started our kitchen remodel. We were able to still enjoy a place to eat and relax, while the benches were full of all kinds of stuff from our kitchen cabinets lol!

 

 

Below is what it looks like today and yes, it’s where our ‘About Us’ page pictures were taken 🙂 The table and pillows are a DIY I can’t wait to share with you soon too! I do plan on adding bench cushions for the sake of comfort, but I love how the benches themselves turned out. They definitely feel like an original part of the house. They ended up costing about $75 all in.

 

 

This room has maintained it’s status as my favorite room in the house. It’s a cozy and charming, bright and cheerful place and I spend a ton of time there soaking all of that up. It has become my own personal little haven where I can enjoy a cup of coffee, a good book, and some quality Pinterest time 😉 I hope there’s a place in your house you enjoy like this because to me that’s what having a home is; but if there’s not just know that creating one is at your DIY fingertips! Thanks for stopping by!

 

Product info – because I know I always want to know where everything comes from!

Amazon definitely helped me out back here!

The black industrial chair, which comes in several other colors on Amazon can be found here

The adorable glass Mud Pie hanging picture frames on Amazon here

Our white Westinghouse ceiling fan, which I highly recommend can be found here

I got the 4′ Fiddle Leaf Fig tree on Amazon too, but it is currently unavailable so I’ll link it as soon as it’s back in stock

The small table with the plant on it is from World Market

The basket the Fig tree is in is from World Market

The matchstick bamboo blinds are from Lowe’s

The breakfast nook table was a yard sale find

The chicken feeder is from the farm I grew up on 🙂