DIY Tufted Leather Bench with Custom Hairpin Legs

It's Monthly DIY Challenge day! This month we were lucky enough to work with Leather Hide Store to create projects using a variety of their gorgeous leather hides. They have also been gracious enough to provide one of their leather upholstery hides to one lucky reader!

Ever since adding our mudroom I knew I would need to build a bench to fit in the nook by the door. DIY'ing a tufted leather bench seemed to be the perfect solution for this little space. Add in the custom hairpin legs my neighbor welded and I had the perfect mudroom addition.

Supplies Used: Affilitae links have been used for your convienece. For more information visit my discolsure polciy here.

- Plywood
- 1/2 inch foam full/queen mattress pad (I used this one)
- Batting
- Leather Hide (I used this one)
- 8 Half Ball Buttons
- Decorator's Needles
- Waxed Button Thread
- Staple Gun
- Drill
- Scissors
- Elmer's Spray Adhesive

I started with a small piece of plywood that I picked up from Home Depot then cut down to size.

Instead of buying expensive foam (can you believe how much it is?) I bought an $8.00 full/queen foam mattress pad from Walmart and cut it down to make 4 layers of foam. I used Spray adhesive to keep the layers together and in place.

I didn't like the idea of having harsh wood edges, so I also wrapped a piece of foam around the outside of the wood.

After covering the foam in batting it was time to start stapling down my leather.

HERE'S WHERE I GOOFED!

I'm all about being honest and sharing my experiences, which sometimes means I have to share the bad with the good. I mistakenly stapled the leather around the entire bench and had a lot of trouble tufting the leather. You'll want to keep one long side free in order to pull the fabric and tuft the leather easily. I ended up having to remove the staples from one side of the bench before adding my buttons.

While my leather was still incorrectly stapled, I measured and drilled my holes for the buttons. You'll want to make sure you only drill through the wood. Avoid drilling too far and into the leather.

For the buttons I used 8 ball cover buttons that I covered in complementing fabric.

You'll need long decorator's needles and waxed button thread to install your buttons and do your tufting. This was my first time using waxed button thread and it was amazing and made pulling the string and getting the buttons tight so easy.

I started by tying a few large knots at the end of my string then secured it with a staple.

I carefully pushed my needle up through my leather and added my button.

Once my button was added I cut the end of my string, making 2 pieces. Before securing my button I gathered the leather from where my previous button was to create the tufting then pulled the string tight and tied it off.

After I had my eight buttons secure I stapled down the rest of the leather.

After I had the bench complete I helped (AKA held the torch for a picture) my neighbor with the hairpin legs. I pretty much just told him the size and design I wanted and watched as he worked his magic.

Once the legs were complete I screwed them to the plywood and my tufted leather bench was complete!

Don't forget to check out the rest of the leather upholstery projects and enter the giveaway below!

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I couldn't be more thrilled with how my tufted leather bench turned out! The custom hairpin legs are the perfect finishing touch and it's a great addition to our mudroom.