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Last month CSN Stores gave me a $60 gift certificate to buy anything I wanted at any of their 200+ stores. This was the post I did about it: Tons of Unique Items at CSN Stores. I had a very hard time deciding what to get, but it finally became very obvious to me what I really NEEDED to get.

Next month I will have been married for 14 years and I have never boughten myself a good set of kitchen knives. I have been using the same $10 Walmart chefs knife for 14 years and I have never had it sharpened. I have always been afraid of having sharp knives because I am a bit of a klutz and being the thrifty person I am I have never been able to justify hundreds of dollars on a nice knife set. I have spent a lot of time deciding where to put my dull knives and even did this post last year:

An an anonymous commenter pointed out to me that most kitchen knife accidents are caused by dull knives.

It was very obvious to me that I needed some new knives with my $60 gift certificate. I spent several hours researching which knives to buy and this is what I came up with:
All of the cooking blogs love Victorinox and the best part is that they are affordable! Just do a google search for “victorinox reviews” and you will find a ton of cooks praising them.
Victorinox is by the inventors of the Swiss Army knife and they have a whole line of kitchen knives. I knew that I didn’t want a big block of knives and after some more research I found out from the professionals that I only needed 3 knives.

1. A chef’s knife. I really wanted a Santoku knife for this. The santoku knife is a modified variation of the chef’s knife with origins from Japan. It has a finer edge which allows for finer precision-cutting. The blade width and weight usually matches that of the handle so if feels more balanced in the hand. It is also made from harder tempered steel. It is shorter, lighter, and easier for smaller hands (like mine). I also love the divots on the sides of the blade that help prevent the vegetables from sticking to the knife.
I got this one for $34.99 at CSN Stores Cookware.com

Heads up: Those reading on Google reader have already seen this post because it accidentally published the other night when I meant to publish the “before” post. So, if you’ve already seen this, sorry. If not, keep reading!

The ugly craiglist bench got a coat of primer and some spray paint before the summer ended last year, but I have to tell you I wasn’t very motivated to work on it after that. The seat that had been on it wasn’t going to work after reupholstering, so Sam needed to cut a new bench top for it. It sat in our entryway, painted but without a seat at all, for the entire winter.

I had bought some fabric that I liked in the remnant section of JoAnn’s for less than $5. That was a bonus – almost made up for the 10 bones I blew on the ugly bench. I just needed to buy some foam for a cushion and Sam needed to cut the plywood board for the seat.

Finally, in February, we got down to business…

Sam had to concoct a way to keep the bench top from slipping right off whenever anyone sat down. Remember, it had been a piano bench with a lift up seat.

We decided on this configuration since it would allow me to easily cover the plywood with fabric and wouldn’t be too difficult for Sam to get a snug fit.

I cut the thickest foam out to size (electric knives are handy for cutting foam, by the way). I then cut a slightly-smaller-all-the-way-around piece from thinner foam and put it on top to give the seat a mounded shape.

Next, I laid the plywood and both pieces of foam over some cotton batting and pulled the batting taut over the foam, folding corners in a mitre, stapling with a staple gun along the underside edges as I went around the perimeter.

I did basically the same thing with the fabric, being careful to arrange the print in a way that would look good after I was done and trying to get decent mitres on the corners. Eh – pretty good. I flipped it over, fit it on the bench, and there you go!

Certainly better than it was.

I still think I spent entirely too much for this project. I had dreams of a $3 bench makeover that would send the blogosphere into a tizzy of thrifty style. Well, maybe not $3, but lower than the $35 that it actually added up to. Still, I like the way it turned out. I like the color and the fabric with the rug. The cushion is nice and high like I wanted. Not perfect, but, overall a good outcome.

I hope that sweet old lady put my ten bucks to good use