Down time

Now that the barn sale is over, I've had a chance to work on a few projects for my own house. I should be caulking and painting baseboards, but opted to finish up some custom orders and refinish this beauty instead.

My coffee table's been plain old white for a couple of years now. My 5 year old drew a helicopter on it in permanent marker a few months ago and while I'm so very proud he drew the rotor blades proportionately, something needed to be done. I thought about just repainting it until I saw an ottoman at Restoration Hardware that I fell in love with. I wish I would have taken a picture. It was beautiful. It looked similar to this.

But the one in store looked more like grain sacks. So I decided to recover it in foam and a patchwork of burlap grain sacks. I immediately searched pinterest and found this tutorial Jenny did from the Little Green Notebook. It was pretty much exactly how I had planned on doing mine but it was good to see the process before I started. Here's the horrid before picture.

One thing different I did from hers was the foam part. I did not, could not, pay 34.99 a yard for 2" foam. And I needed at least two yards. Even half off that makes me see stars. So instead I bought a twin sized egg crate mattress pad for $12.00 and cut it up. 

I hot glued the foam in a few spots just to keep it in place until I covered it with batting.

There's my helper in the top left corner. He wielded hammer while I held the nails. Needless to say, it wasn't as successful as Dennis the Menaces tree house scene. Anyways, then I stapled the batting to the bottom. After that I cut up the burlap into different sized squares and just kind of sewed it into big patches until it was big enough to cover the whole thing. 

I bought some button nail things and covered them with fabric. Then I nailed them right into the wood top for the tufting. I then flipped it over and stapled the burlap to the bottom, finishing it off. 

I know, it looks weird without a rug. I used to have a gorgeous one in here but had to move it. My kids kept moving it around and rolling each other up in it like a bunch of hit men. It was driving me MAD. So out it went.

I bought all the grain sacks at the barn sale from a few different vendors. I really love all the typography and texture it brings to a piece.

 And now I can look at my coffee table without thinking "dang it, I forgot magic erasers again".

You know what I mean...