Just about every month now, Hubby and I have a kid free weekend thanks to my parents. As I have gotten older I have come to understand I won’t always have my parents and one day I am going to wake up and wish Glitter would have gotten to spend more time with them. So once a month I can give up a couple hours to take Glitter down and hang with them as well. The rest of the weekend is up to us and we are loving the time together.
We had one of these weekends recently and decided it was a perfect time to get a project off the “to do list”. Before Hubby and I got started, I had the naïve thought: “Oh this won’t take too long and should be done in plenty of time to go out for dinner.” Y’all, it took so long! I am not kidding. What I thought would be a couple of hours turned into two days!! Bless my Hubby’s heart, he never faltered and keep me going when I wanted to quit.
The project started off with the idea of turning this box into an ottoman to go with my chair.
Just a little FYI, there is always more than meets the eye. We started with trying to sand off some of the paint. We found out the paint was latex paint and was gumming up the sandpaper. After 45 minutes and 5 pieces of sand paper, we opted to just strip the paint.
As the stripper started working, we found out there was multiple layers of paint. It started with the brown/reddish, which covered the blue. The next layer was red, then led to gold, like Christmas gold. White waited under and finally found the original color which was military green. No, the box was not a military box but rather a plywood box someone hastily put together. The hinges had been replaced and painted over as well. After an entire can of stripper, we finally gave up. We only had three sides done and lost about 2 and half hours until finally I threw in the proverbial towel. That moment is also when my dreams of repurposing furniture died, I think.
A quick trip to the local hardware store and big box store, found us back at home to start on building an ottoman. I thought about how big it should be and told Hubby. He didn’t question he just started cutting the wood. After it was cut, he handed me the Bosch multi tool with the sander attachment on it and told me to get busy sanding. (Hey Bosch, let’s talk about a series of posts using your tools. We are game!) As I finished sanding, Hubby started putting the sides together. Y’all a two-foot cube is HUGE for an ottoman!! When I figured it out we were low on daylight so we only had time cut the cube down to one square foot and high tail it to our uncle’s shop. There we spent the rest of the evening trying to finish up. By 10 that night we had enough and ready to bed.
Sunday was the last day we had to get the ottoman finished and to pick up Glitter. Painting was the main objective for this day. The ottoman had been put together the night before and was waiting on us when we got started. I chose a bright shade of blue called Centurian Blue by Kilz. For the fabric cover to the padding I chose a cream color fabric since the blue was bright and the chair I paired it with is gray.
I got it painted and mostly done before we had to go get Glitter. Thankfully my parents had already told us they were going to make supper for us. By the time we made it home it was late and Hubby agreed to stay at the shop and finish the little things, while I put Glitter to bed. He installed the hinge and put on the final touches like the knob and the wheels. The final product was done about 10:30 at night. I couldn’t have been happier with it. The ottoman looks amazing with the chair.
If the right project comes up again I would be glad to use the power tools. Painting is always fun as well. Have you ever built something or repurposed furniture? I would love to hear about it!
