bench from old chairs

I didn't really do all of this today, but it's one of my creations.  I found 3 old matching chairs at a junk shop.  They were $1.50 each.  First I removed the old covers, screws, and such and scrubbed them well.  From there, I re-glued a couple of loose spots and screwed a couple of places together to make the chairs sturdy.  Next, I primed them with some leftover primer.  Once they were white from the primer, I used wood putty to fill in a couple of gouges and places where I had added screws to make them more stable.  I sanded the putty and noticed that so much of the primer  had soaked in that I painted them with primer a second time.  After that had dried, I painted them with two coats of gloss white paint.  Next, I used a big piece of cardboard to make a pattern for the "bench seat" which I planned to use to connect the chairs.  On the pattern, I notched out spots to make it fit tightly.  I used the cardboard to cut out a piece of plywood to match the pattern.  I covered the plywood seat with some padding--actually, I split open an old body pillow and used the filling to make the seat padding. I covered that with a layer of old white sheet fabric and then used the green swirl fabric to cover that.  I just wrapped it around the seat and stapled it to the back.  Ta da--a new bench for our breezeway. 

I could have screwed the three chairs together to make the bench even more sturdy, but it held together well the way it was.

I'll post a picture of the final product.  I didn't think to photograph the chairs before I started--wish I would have!