Ottoman Re-Do

To get into the spirit of turning this blog into a DIY blog, I'm wanted to post one of my first DIY projects. Since it's really not appreciated over at the old blog.  Enjoy!

This ottoman belonged to Red's late grandmother. It was given to him a couple of years ago. We only recently began using it, but it just really didn't even kind of 'go' in our living room. It was a weird, faded pinkish maroon color. Our living room colors all tie into the checkered rug, and this ottoman does not.

I asked Red's permission first, as it was his piece, and he agreed. So I searched a little manically for the right fabric to recover this ottoman. Ironically, I found it this morning in the Wal-Mart sale bin.

I began by taking the hardware off. I set the bottom half aside so I could work on the top. Sylvester helped keep the bottom half from going anywhere. He's helpful like that.

At first I thought this would be easier than I'd anticipated. I mean, make sure the fabric is strait and attack it with the staple gun, right?

But I'd forgotten about these little button thingys. I had no plan for them at all. I sat for a half hour, staring at them, before jimmy rigging a new string set through the wood. Also, glue guns are a life saver for this.  I heard after the fact that there are kits for this sort of thing. But I didn't know about those at the time, okay?

If you are looking at the above photo and thinking to yourself something looks off here, that's because there is something off here. I didn't admit it during my original posting. But as it happens, I did string up the buttons before re-covering this top section, and thus had to pull them back out, cover the top, and re string them. Yes, it was a pain in the ass. Yes, I did waste a lot of time. Yes, yes and yes to all of the common sense questions milling through your brain right now.

I'm only human, people!

The bottom was pretty easy too. I 'hemmed' the side pieces with the glue gun and just stapled the fabric into insides.

I still had some tweaking to do around the corners because I didn't like them sticking out. But overall I'd say it's found a nice home in our living room. 
Because it matches now!



Emily