Piano Bench Makeover

A few Christmases ago, my boyfriend was given this electric keyboard and piano bench:

It's a dark picture, but you can see them, right? That's in our old rental house. Do you want to know something creepy? The piano bench used to look like this:

Yamaha Wood Piano Bench

Now what I want to know is, how can anyone in good conscience make a piece of furniture this ugly? I almost considered it a lost cause. Instead of giving up, I decided to make it more functional and change its form a bit with some black paint and a bit of fabric.

First I knew I wanted it to hold sheet music, so I removed the top and added a bottom and two hinges to create a little storage space.

Next I painted the wooden base with black paint. And finally, I added some batting and this fabric I found on Etsy by Lizzy House. The pattern is from the Castle Peeps collection and it's called Castle Dots in green. I purchased the fabric from uberstitch, but you can find Lizzy's fabric all over Etsy with a search. Also, most sellers on Etsy will sell you just the amount of fabric you need cut off the bolt, so be sure to contact them to see if they'll do a custom listing for you.

Here's the top of the bench after it was all finished:

And now you can see those black legs:

And here it is with its new storage compartment:

Now the bench looks a lot less...naked? And it's way more functional. Awesome.