Loft Refresh Part 1

Ya'll I kid you not when I say I scoured the interwebs for loft inspiration and much to my disappointment I kept coming up short. Sure, a loft often refers to a swanky New York apartment overlooking the city but what about the dead space in the second story of my very stucco, desert track home? I knew I needed the space to serve many purposes from storage and seating to entertaining and studying. So I did what any reasonable yet frustrated DIYer does; throw caution to the wind and jumped into this project head first!

- BEFORE-

Where to start? Seating.

I knew I wanted to build a custom bench seat across the window with storage below and bookshelves flanking either side. I scrolled miles with my thumb looking at DIY window bench seats on Pinterest before deciding I had enough basic knowledge to start winging it!

Here you can see we created two frames using 1" by 3" by 8' pine boards.

We cut the "arms" of this piece to equal the depth we wanted the bench seat to be. Used a drill and 3" long screws to be sure they were firmly secured.

-Learning As We Go-

Okay so you can see in this series of photos that we built the bench seat all the way up before realizing the top of the bench would be sitting too high. Le Sigh. We forgot to account for the additional 3" from using the 1x3 pine board on its side (see 4th photo). This is the sort of thing you can expect when you are just doing and not planning! Needless to say we had to take the entire thing a part and lower it to fit the space.

In full transparency we had an easier time doing this because we were working on the sub floor. So aside from screwing into the actual floor we also were sure to support this structure into studs in the wall. You can see we eliminated the front support. Verdicts still out if this was a good idea or not but I assure you this thing is solid. If we didn't have the subfloor to work with I would definitely be sure I was reinforcing into studs. We used cut MDF boards for the sides and shiplap paneling for the front.

We also used a long piece of MDF cut to size for the lid of our bench. We simply attached the lid to the box by securing simple door hinges to both the lid and the 1x3s below. Scroll to see this paneling up close (purchased from Home Depot).

Now to create built ins using Billy Bookcases from IKEA. Want to see more of this project? Click HERE.

Your DIY Novice,

Laura