Reupholstered Ottoman

Alright, everything's dry (though the coffee table is going to get another 1,000 coats to make it super-shiny), so you can finally get a look at my reupholstered ottoman.

My husband bought this ottoman a few years ago, right after we bought our house. It was bright red velvet with shiny silver metal legs. Does that even sound normal?


I don't even have a picture of it. With my camera not functioning, I wasn't going to wait. I tried scouring my archives of pictures to see if it was in the background of one, but no such luck. So just use your imagination.



Anyways, there was one good thing about this ottoman: It was a storage ottoman. I love storage.



So there was no way that I was just going to toss a perfectly good storage ottoman.

Reupholster it!

This is what I got:

The color doesn't match perfectly, but it's the closest I could get. Plus I think the flash brought out a little bit of that bright red that is underneath, because it looks like an almost perfect match in front of me right now.

See the cute new legs I put on? Much better than those silver abominations.

Anyways, here are some details:

The top where I sewed a white button on intersecting pleats.

Here are the pleats.

I cheated a bit on the pleats. Instead of folding the fabric back every once in a while, I upholstered the entire ottoman, then made strips with the leftover fabric. I folded the strips to hide the unfinished edge, then stapled those at intervals. Easy, right?

Ready for another sneak peek?

Hmmm...well something's obviously being painted. It can't be that old basement window because of that funky edge. It I didn't know any better, I would say that it looks like an "I" (but it's not!)

Clear coat laquer

Did you know that clear coat laquer can dry in 30 minutes in 40 degree weather? I didn't, but now I do.
And to think, I was going to purchase my usual polyurethane..... =D

It's not recommended for floors, and it's fumes are terrible. Found that out the hard way when I put the first coat on indoors. Blech....

Anyways, I figured I would just throw that out there.
Stay tuned later today for my reupholstered ottoman (which is out drying along with my coffee table)

Cookbook Stand

We're kicking back with an easy post today.

I found this picture display easel a couple weeks ago at Walmart for only $7.97. Not too bad, right?

I figured that it's about time I have a cookbook stand, so that's what my display turned out to be. When it's not in active use, it holds a cookbook that my mother-in-law scrap booked for me years ago (maybe for Christmas?)

Isn't that a nice way to display a family treasure?

I think I may add a glaze to it to bring out some more of the bronze tones. It looks too black to me.

Here's another peek at my big project:

Well, that just looks like a bunch of rags...

Up and Coming: reupholstered ottoman, Magic Bullet recipes, more sneak peeks, and a coffee table redone (yes, I did another project).

Art for the Music Lover

I'm so glad to finally be done with the project.

I had this fun little space where 4 doors meet to make a square on the ceiling.

So I painted it a little darker and tried painting some music notes. Just in case you're wondering, these notes are from a Bryan Adams song, which is also "our song."

Well, as you can tell from the picture, it turned out horribly. Since it was dark, I couldn't tell that I really needed to give the brown one more coat. The notes were too large, and my hand was not steady enough to make it look good. Wow....what a disaster!!

So I had to redo it all. After sanding it down and putting a few more coats of brown paint on, I finally got what I wanted.

Take a look at this heart. Isn't it the cutest thing ever? I think it would make a great tattoo.....

Then I printed out the words "Everything I Do, I Do It For You," cut out around each word, taped them to the walls exactly where I wanted them, and traced around the letters. I had to press down very hard to make indents in the walls. Then I took the paper off and traced over the indents with a pencil. After that, all I had to do was fill it in with paint!

All this was done with a paint marker. You can find them in the craft section of Walmart, or any craft store. I knew that painting it with a brush was just going to make it look just as horrible as the notes came out.

Here's a panned-out shot of the project. If you look hard, you can see all three walls (the fourth wall has a smoke alarm on it, so I wasn't going to bother with that wall).

Want another sneak peak at the big project?






What is that?! Sort of looks like tuxedo stripes.....




Stick around for: a fun find for a family treasure, the reupholstered ottoman, some Magic Bullet recipes, and more sneak peaks!

Vinyl Decal

I'm back!



Did you miss me?

Well, I obviously got my camera charger in. It works wonderfully and I couldn't be more pleased. So I got a bunch of pictures taken today, and I will be sharing with you my endeavors in my absence.



We're going to start off small.


I got this vinyl wall decal from a great seller on Etsy name Freckled Hound.


When I saw it, I knew I had to have it.

My fondest memories are made in the evening around our cozy dining room table.

I had this awkward space from my foyer table being not centered, but yet I didn't want to center the table. I wanted to fill the wall space.

Do you think it looks much better, too?

You're going to notice that in my upcoming projects, I won't have any "before" pictures. Not having a camera was not going to stop me from doing my projects. I will try to describe the "before's" as well as I can for you!

Anyways, remember I showed you that old basement window, and I said that it would be a long time until you saw that again? Well, it may only be a few more weeks. I've been a well-oiled machine lately. Want a sneak peek?

Coming up: Art for the Music Lover, Reupholstered ottoman, some fun Magic Bullet recipes (made more tonight, but we ate it too fast!), and, of course, more sneak peaks of my huge project.