Making a Kitchen Bench

Line the wall or other space for your bench with cabinets. Arrange the cabinets so the doors swing open from the bottom, and place their sides directly against one another with no space between.

Drill pilot holes through the cabinets' interior walls, drilling only through the sides that have cabinets on the other side. Create these holes 3 inches from the tops, bottoms and sides of the interior walls, going through both walls; this means you should have four holes in each cabinet's interior wall. Insert your bolts through the holes, then fasten your nuts onto the bolts' ends to join the cabinet sides.

Measure length and width of the top of the bench base you just constructed from cabinets. Using your serrated knife, cut your foam cushion to those dimensions.

Lay your fabric face down. Lay one large side of your foam over the fabric and draw a border around the edge of the cushion. Lay your foam on one of its longest edges, and trace around that side as well, on a different part of the fabric. Then lay your foam on its shorter edge and also trace around that side. Leave at least a couple of inches on all sides between each tracing.

Repeat your tracing to create two versions of each rectangular template; you now have six rectangle or square drawings on the back of your fabric, each representing one side of your foam cushion. Add a 1/2-inch border around each box; add an extra 1/2 inch around one of the longer edge piece's tracings to make a full 1-inch border. Cut out your fabric boxes along their outermost borders.

Set aside your two large fabric pieces; two long and two short edge pieces are left. Line up the two short pieces with the slightly smaller long piece in this configuration: short piece, long piece, short piece. Line them up by their short edges, which should have the same measurements. Pin the pieces together along their touching edges, leaving a 1/2-inch seam allowance. Sew them together along their pinned edges, creating one long piece. Remove pins as you sew.

Cut the remaining, slightly larger long-edge pieces in half, lengthwise. Lay the two strips next to each other, along their longest edges, with their wrong sides facing up. Fold up their touching edges 1/2 inch from the edge, then lay the zipper face down over these folded seams. Attach the zipper foot to your machine. Sew along each of the zipper's two long edges.

Pin together all your pieces along their matching edges, leaving a 1/2-inch seam allowance; you're creating an empty, inside-out fabric box. Sew the pieces together along their pinned edges, removing pins as you go.

Open the zippered back of the fabric box and turn the fabric right side out by pulling the fabric through the zipper's opening. Work the foam cushion into the fabric box, matching long and short edges. Stuff the corners of the box cushion with extra stuffing to fill them out.

Lay your cushion over the cabinet bench base to complete your kitchen bench.