Nursery Progress: A DIY Ottoman

When we bought the glider from Pottery Barn Kids, we decided not to purchase the matching ottoman. I searched around on the Internet for awhile but couldn’t really find anything that I liked. So I decided to make my own.

There are lots of turning-a-coffee-table-into-an-ottoman posts and general info out there on the web, but that’s not the route I wanted to take. First, I didn’t feel like hunting around for a round coffee table that would work as an ottoman and second, I’m kind of impatient.

I found an article on the Better Homes & Gardens website about a DIY ottoman. I read through the steps and loosely based my plan on it.

We have an ottoman on the 3rd floor and I based some initial decisions by testing that one out. The ottoman was 15 inches tall which seemed a good height for the chair. It also helped determine an 18 to 24inch radius. We don’t own a jigsaw, so I was really hoping to find a round table top at the hardware store. Without a jigsaw, I couldn’t buy a plywood square and trim it into a circle. I remembered that Young House Love had transformed a table for their old sunroom by purchasing a new table top from Lowe’s, so I was optimistic that I could get most of my materials there. Indeed, I was able to score a 24inch round table top and four legs with appropriate mounting hardware.

Next I was off to JoAnn’s armed with a 20% off the entire purchase (including sale items!) coupon. I bought 3 pieces of high density foam measuring 22 x 22 x 2. I’m not sure if having the bulk foam custom cut would have been cheaper or not, but since the foam was already 50% off and I had a 20% off coupon, I wasn’t too concerned.

I also bought some batting, but turns out that I had enough batting at home so I’ll be saving the batting that I purchased for another project.

Lots of words and no pictures yet, let’s fix that!

First a height check. We’ve got 6 inches of foam, 1 inch of tabletop, and 7 inches of feet (not pictured). So we’re at 14 inches total. Pretty close to my target height.

I have outlined the tabletop on each piece of foam for my cuts.

And I used scissors to cut the foam to size (and electric knife would have been preferable but we don’t own one). Since my foam sheets were not 24×24, I had 2 sides where I needed to piece together the trimmed off foam to fill things in. This worked fairly well.

Next I took the foam out to the garage to spray the layers (and pieces) together with adhesive. I let them set up for a bit and attached the leg hardware. I found the legs in the aisle with trim at the hardware store. These leg plates were right next to them.

I positioned them 2 inches in, leaving plenty of room to staple the batting and upholstery.

Next, I took the tabletop out to the garage and used the spray adhesive to attach the foam.

The next step was applying the batting. I used a double layer and tried to pull it as tight as possible (to smooth out my imperfections with the foam). You need to be careful not to pull too tightly though, the batting can rip.

Then I took a week long break and looked at pretty fabric online. Then I got impatient and took a picture of some fabric I found at JoAnn’s for Matt’s approval.

Matt approved, so this past Friday night I headed out to JoAnn’s and bought a yard and a half. I came home and stapled the fabric on.

With the ottoman being round, things aren’t perfectly smooth and there are little pleats all the way around. But you know what, I don’t really care. If we decide to slipcover it in the future, you won’t be able to tell. I still need to paint the legs/feet, but I’m calling this project d-o-n-e. If I were to do it all again, I’d definitely pick up an electric knife for cutting the foam – especially since my ottoman isn’t a square/rectangle.

It brings some nice color to the room (and you can spy the finally-hung curtains!). But the ottoman’s biggest fan is probably Savannah. I’m pretty sure that Savannah thinks everything in the nursery is meant for her. I actually caught her napping in the crib this past Sunday. I’m hoping that she was only lured in there because she couldn’t resist a nap on the quilt that Grammy made for Baby Kesler.

And here’s the breakdown:

Tabletop, legs, and leg hardware: $38.03
Foam and batting: $31.46
Home Decor fabric: $12.12
Grand Total: $81.61

Baby Shower, part 1

What a weekend, you guys! It was Baby Kesler’s baby shower on Saturday and it was so awesome and so much fun. I’ll have to break this up into 2 parts to avoid a mega-huge post.

One of the best parts was that Kristen (aka Miss Prissy Paige) was able to make the 7hr trek up from Georgia. And not only did she make the trip, but she also co-hosted the event with my friend Maria. Talk about awesome.

But first I want to show you the thank-you-for-being-awesome-and-throwing-me-a-shower gifts I assembled for Kristen and Maria. I knew I wanted to give them something semi-handmade and I took inspiration from the burp cloths I’m currently working/procrastinating on. I bought some plain white hand towels from Target and added some fun fabric to the bottom. I was also inspired to do this because I’ve  been seeing this fun fabric at JoAnn and it just seemed to me like Kristen *needed* it since it’s pretty close to her signature color.

I paired the hand towels with a candle and Starbucks gift card. I picked the candle mainly because of the pretty tin, and I thought it smelled good. I bundled it all up in a hot pink bag with orange tissue paper and tied it up with a leftover piece of fabric.

I hope Kristen and Maria enjoyed their gifts, though I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to thank them enough for hosting and providing this opportunity for us to prepare for Baby Kesler’s arrival.

Baby K’s First Quilt

I purchased the fabric for this quilt awhile ago and had it washed and ready. I finally had time and motivation to work on it and I powered through and completed it in one weekend. I decided to just do strips of fabric instead of blocks to keep things on the simple side.

I added in two strips that were kind of patchworked together to add some variety, and because I needed a little bit more length. I like how they keep the quilt from just being two fabrics alternated the whole time. I kept the quilting super simple – just stitching “in the ditch” or where the rows met. The back is a white flannel with small pink dots. I used this Prudent Baby tutorial for a cheat on the binding. I find binding to be one of the most intimidating parts of quilts. This method worked good enough for me.

Enough chatting, here are some pictures:

Savannah was a big help through the whole quilting process:

In fact, she’s already tested it out on the back of the glider!

It’s far from perfect – I’m sure its not square, the binding is a bit off, my cuts were probably wrong, but it’s finished and it’s good enough for me!

Vacation Recap

Oops! I went on vacation for two weeks and was too busy to update the blog. Here’s a catch up post.

Matt painted the nursery. (Martha Stewart’s Sea Glass in Glidden base — satin finish)

Then he painted the downstairs hallway. (A Restoration Hardware color matched to Glidden in eggshell finish. I think maybe this color is Gravel? I can’t remember)

Then the upstairs hallway. (Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter color matched to Glidden in eggshell)

Then he did a second coat on the downstairs hallway and painted the kitchen the same color as the hallway. I’m not sure he’ll ever paint again.

We enjoyed a great Christmas and New Years. We hosted a Mad Men/1960s themed NYE party and had a blast (though staying up until 2:30am was a bit rough). Here I am with our niece Adi in our homemade photobooth:

And with a candy cigarette:

We also bought a 1963 Life magazine from the antique store and created a display of old ads:

I also started the third trimester. Cue freak out. We have finally ordered the crib but made no progress on the glider situation. Hopefully we will soon, though, because we’re down to 12 weeks until the due date. Time is going to start flying by.

Cross your fingers that time slows down a bit — I already know that January is going to whiz by!

Nursery Purchase: Artwork

On Friday I was browsing Twitter and saw a post about the shopping deal site, Fab. I’ve joined quite a few shopping deal sites but have never really been all too impressed. That’s not the case with Fab though.

I stumbled across the work of artist Heather Mattoon and just about died. She does art prints of cats in clothes. I showed Matt and he agreed that we must have some prints. After browsing the options, we ended up with the four.

First, for Baby K’s nursery, Elise:

For Matt’s office, Dexter:

And for elsewhere in the house,

Morris:

and George:

You can commission work of your own cat, which I think would be awesome. Too bad it’s $500! Maybe someday…

I am crazy excited for these to come in (they’re pre-framed, too!) so I can figure out the perfect location in the nursery for Elise.

Controlling the Paperwork

A few weeks ago I decided that I have had enough with our jam-packed drawer filled with user manuals and other documentation. Since we’ve been buying furniture, we really need to hold on to our receipts and document our purchases in case of any necessary insurance claim.

Here’s what we were working with:

You can see that I tried to control the chaos by using folders. I roughly had these categories: garage, kitchen, household, and electronics. Categorizing is a good thing, but since it was so messy to deal with, nothing ever got filed into the appropriate place.

So I got 2 1.5inch binders {hindsight, I need bigger binders} and 100 sheet protectors {I used just under half}. I started going through the papers, tossing what was not needed and sliding items into the sheet protectors. This was really a painless process.

Once everything was sleeved up, I put them in the binders. I need to get some divider tabs, but this is roughly how the binders are organized:

Binder 1, large appliances and house items

examples: washer, dryer, fridge, dishwasher, microwave, stove, ceiling fans, gas fireplace

Binder 2, small kitchen appliances, garage, furniture, electronics

examples: lawn mower, weed eater, garage door opener, tv’s, game systems, coffee pot

They’re back in the drawer for now, but the beauty of the binders is that I could easily store them elsewhere in the house with quite ease.

And now I just need to tackle the rest of the continual clutter on this side of the kitchen.