Need a seat?

After a year of living in our home, we decided to add some storage and seating to our living room with a window seat.

The bay window in our space has some unique angles but the windows themselves are beautifully symmetrical, and we found ourselves drawn to sitting in the area.  We had tried a chair and small bench in the window area, which did not fully utilize it, flipped the room arrangement around for the love seat to fit on the shorter wall but block the light, and finally decided to take the plunge and build a permanent seat in the living and family space.

Our first phase was deconstruction and framing. Our friend Andy helped in this part and also in cutting a number of the lumber pieces so that framing came together quickly.  We removed baseboard trim around the windows so that 2x4s could be anchored directly into the studs the entire height of the seat.  

We marked the studs and used 2-1/2" nails for attaching pieces and to the walls.  When the entire surface was framed, we used 3/4" birch plywood for the base, then attached additional risers to the studs and framed out the top as well.  We used 1x4 appearance boards for the facing and Alex built up blocks inside of the cabinet to the correct height for the drawer slides to fit over the front baseboard, then I left him to the drawer devices.