The Furniture Hack You Have to Try

If you have champagne interiors tastes but lemonade pockets, you need to try this clever hack, using Ikea’s little?Lack tables…

Blogger Hester van Overbeek, a?passionate craft and DIY-er, loves furniture hacking so much, she wrote a book about it.?Furniture Hacks,?out this month, is packed with clever ideas,?handy tutorials and quick?updates. Here, she shares an easy-peasy how-to for creating a very cute little reading nook.

“A reading nook can bring a cosy feel to your living room,” she says. “It’s a great place to snuggle up with a good book and a cup of tea, and also provides lots of extra seating when you have friends over.” The best thing is, you can make this?nook in ?just one afternoon. “I used three small cube tables for this hack, but you can use a different quantity to make your bench as long or short as you wish.”

You will need

? coffee tables (Hester used three Ikea Lack tables; don’t attach the castors)

? paint and paintbrushes (optional)

? measuring tape

? foam seating pad

? fabric (see step 4 for quantity)

? scissors

? needle and pins

? thread

? sewing machine

Before you start:?Make sure your coffee tables are sturdy enough to support a person’s weight. If necessary, before painting, strengthen any joints with metal corner brackets.

1. Make sure your tables are clean and dust-free. If you wish, give your tables a lick of paint – my tables were black, so I decided to brighten them up with a coat of white gloss paint. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly and apply a second coat if necessary.
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2. Push your tables together and measure the top, so you can work out the dimensions of the seating pad. I decided to leave some space at one end to provide a surface for books and a cup of tea.

3. Have a piece of foam cut to size or butt smaller pieces together (my local sewing store only sells square pieces of seating foam, so I stitched mine together to form a long piece).

4. The fabric for the cover needs to be long enough and wide enough to wrap around the foam with an extra 2in (5cm) added to both the length and the width. I used fleece, as it makes a very warm and comfy seat, but sturdy cotton or wool fabric would work just as well. Fold the fabric in half, right sides facing. Pin down the long side and one of the short sides and stitch, taking a ?in (1cm) seam allowance

5. Turn the cover right side out. Wrestle the foam pad inside the cover – it will be a little snug, but it will fit.

6. Fold the corners of the open end in, as though you are wrapping a present, and hand-stitch closed. Place your seating pad on the bench and you are ready to accessorise with pillows.

And that’s it! Easy-peasy and fun too.

For more genius hacks, pick up?Furniture Hacks by Hester van Overbeek, published by CICO Books (?22.50, available at Eason) and out now.