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!

Laundry Room Revamp

Happy Friday, all!

I finally got around to a “to-do” that’s been on my list for an embarrassingly long time. I repainted the plywood countertop in the laundry room.

When I first took on this project not too long after we moved into our house, I had no clue what I was doing. I used polyurethane to seal my painted white plywood. Big mistake. Let’s just say that the countertop was looking more yellow than white.

This picture is actually the BOTTOM side of the countertop. Yeah. The top was worse than this.

So I hauled that sucker outside and gave it a good sanding. But try as I might, I couldn’t get all of the yellowed poly off. So I decided to slap on a coat of Zinsser 1-2-3 primer to hopefully prevent the leftover poly from causing any issues.

Once the primer was dry, I gave the plywood a light sanding with a sanding block, then removed all dust with a tack cloth. Now it was time for the spray paint.

I did 3 coats of a vanilla white color in total, basically the whole can. Did you know that your finger can start to *really* hurt from spray painting? Totally not fun.

A day later, I started applying thin coats of Minwax Polycrylic in a semi-gloss finish. I need this countertop to be durable since the laundry room is dust city and the cats eat on the countertop.

I still would like to get this countertop off of the washer/dryer and secure to the walls, but this is good enough for now. But a refreshed countertop is a good first step.

Have a great weekend!

Dare to… Deck the Halls!

This has to be one of my favorite weeks in Kim @ Newly Woodwards Dare to DIY Blog Party.

The other weekend, I found myself with an empty house and hours alone, which obviously equalled a day of crafting. I had seen the coffee filter Christmas tree over at The Nester, and thought I’d give it a try.

It took 150-175 regular sized coffee filters and a cone form (which I had leftover from last Christmas- score!). I folded the filters in quarters and hot glued them to the cone form.

I also made two Martha Stewart magazine trees. They aren’t totally finished as I haven’t had a chance to spray paint and giltter them yet.

I also made a yarn wreath with a creamy ivory yarn. Mine took less than 1 skein, but I might add a few layers to it.

Right now, the trees and wreath are dressing up my dining room. But I have to share these adorable little birds that I snagged at JoAnn for 40% off. They’re nesting on the piano in the living room.

Homemade Marshmallows

Over the weekend, I made marshmallows using a Martha Stewart recipe (found here). This was my second attempt at marshmallows. The first time I made them, I didn’t have a candy thermometer. Things did not go very well. But this time I was armed with the proper hardware, and it made a world of a difference.

These would make a perfect holiday hostess or teacher gift, so I’m linking up to week 4 of Kim @ NewlyWoodwards Dare to DIY party.

I loaded my marshmallows into a holiday tin with some extra powdered sugar to keep them from sticking to each other. You could also package these with some homemade hot chocolate mix.