Banquette

I love going through the BHG website to find inspiration.  All the photos are so full of colour and light and they make me want to recreate that energy in my house.  If you haven't seen it, go and have a look at the decorating section.

So I was looking last week and came across some beautiful pics of banquettes, then realised it's the perfect solution for my dining room.  It's a pretty cramped space, but I didn't really want to get rid of the seating altogether.  Enter the banquette!

But all this stuff is getting pretty pricey and I couldn't really afford to buy all the timber to build it.  Then I started wondering if I could perhaps make it from old pallets?  Why not?  So after pilfering a pallet from the backyard of a smash repairer (it was on a rubbish pile) and scavenging some old discarded fence pailings from the kerbside, I was ready to go...

The white strip is that horrible double sided lino tape.  Happily, it will mostly be covered by timber so I won't have to try and get it off.  :)

All the wood is warped and crooked = the most dodgy joints of all time!

This took all day to do, after picking up the scrap wood, and by 5pm I was so tired and sore I couldn't hold the hammer anymore.  Actually, it's the first thing I've ever built where I only used nails and glue with no screws.  Hmm.  It seems sturdy enough and I suspect that Molly will be the only one who really sits there, so I'm hoping it will hold together ok.

Next step will be mdf for the top and plywood for the front and sides.  :)