Savvy couple quoted £800 for chic corner seat create it themselves for a fraction of the price using free wood
A COUPLE who were quoted £800 for their dream corner seat, created it themselves for a fraction of the price using free wood.
Matthew Scoby, 28, and his partner Grace Shannon, 27, who live in Middlesbrough, caught the DIY bug when they bought their first house at the start of the pandemic.
Matthew, a plant operator and Grace, a primary school teacher, started off small, making a mantlepiece for their fireplace, and soon began tiling their own kitchen and fitting the floor.
Growing in confidence, the couple then salvaged old wood destined for the skip and built a beautiful storage corner seat unit.
They spent just £100 on the project, and estimate it would have cost up to £800 to have built professionally.
Matthew told money-saving Facebook group DIY On A Budget UK: "We bought our first house right at the start of the first lockdown knowing it was going to be a long term renovation project for us.
“With neither of us having any real DIY experience we started off with having tradesmen come in to do everything but the actual decorating for us.
"Soon enough our budget ran out and we had to start getting inventive.
Most read in Fabulous
"The first real DIY hack we did was making a mantlepiece for the fireplace - after pricing them up for over £100 we decided we could just make one ourselves which came out amazing.
"We then began work in the kitchen. We had a new kitchen installed by a professional joiner but didn't have the money to pay for someone to tile behind the worktops or fit our floor for us.
"So after watching a few YouTube videos Grace and I were confident we could do it.
"We bought a tile cutter and an angle grinder with some pads for cutting ceramic and Grace started planning it out.
"After a few weekends of working and many incorrectly cut tiles we managed to get it finished.
"A professional might be able to point out a couple of mistakes we made but overall I think we outdid ourselves.
"Once the kitchen was fit and the floor was tiled we added skirting boards and began planning what we would want to do for our dining space which brings us onto the bench.
"Originally we had bought an extendable table and chairs from a charity shop to upcycle, which Grace had sanded and prepped for us to paint.
“However, after taking a step back and looking at it again we realised the table wouldn't really go with the kitchen and it also took up too much space.
"So after a brainstorming session we realised we could also do with some extra storage, and Grace had seen a video on TikTok of a lady who had built her own bench with storage which we decided to make our own version of.”
The couple were lucky enough to bag most of their food for free.
We are both absolutely over the moon with it now it's completed
Matt Scoby
Matt continued: “"We managed to get quite a lot of the wood for free however all of the tongue and groove we had to buy and around eight 2.4 meter lengths of CLS wood we also had to buy.
"I asked about at first to see if I could find any spare materials and found that my barbers were having a refit and were taking an old stud wall out, so I asked if I could salvage the waste to use which they agreed.
"When I went to pick it up there was another shop that was being refit and they had a skip full of old bits of wood so I went and asked if I could salvage some of theirs which they allowed me to.
"Then I was also able to salvage an old wardrobe which was stored away in a family member's garage to use for the seat, the floor in the storage and the tops of the backrest.
“The lengths of timber cost £50, the tongue and groove cost £30, the paint cost £8, the skirting board cost £8 and the hinges cost £4, so that made a total of £100.
"Without managing to get any freebies I would imagine it would cost closer to £150 or £180, however I do think it could be done cheaper as I think I went a little overboard with strengthening the frame up if I'm honest!
"I would imagine this would cost between £600 and £800 to be built professionally.”
“We are both absolutely over the moon with it now it's completed.”
Tom Church, co-founder of , comments: “This is an absolutely stunning corner seat that looks like it cost thousands to make.
“Well done to Matthew and Grace for doing it all themselves, after never having done any DIY just a couple of years ago!
READ MORE SUN STORIES
“What I love even more is how they hunted down wood destined for the skip.
“This means they saved loads of money, reduced waste and helped the environment too!"