OTTOMAN

On my personal FB page last week, I posted this photo and asked my friends to guess what I was going to make using these items - nobody guessed.

A few months ago, I had brought home two of these large wooden boxes, which are actually drawer boxes.  I work for a kitchen & bath design firm, and these drawers were a mis-order, so they were going in the trash.  I'm like... "I'LL TAKE THEM!"  I knew I could come up with something to do with them.  I was originally thinking maybe toy boxes for the boys room.  Then when I rearranged our furniture after taking down the Christmas Tree, our big club chair was in desperate need of an ottoman.  So for a few weeks, one of the boxes sat in front of the chair, upside down, with a pillow on top.  Then last week, while looking for something else, I found this huge bag of old macrame cording that my old neighbor had given me.  There was one skein that had never been opened.  It was navy blue and 300' long.  It got me thinking.  As my mind starting racing at 100mph, I remembered that we had kept the top and the shelf of an old coffee table that they boys had broken by constantly jumping on it.  Now my mind was really going, and I had to go to the big city the next day - I was definitely making a stop at Hobby Lobby.

At Hobby Lobby, I found this AWESOME navy wood grain print fabric, and while there, picked up some 3" thick foam.  Now my mission was to find something for feet - I headed to Home Depot.  I looked at the typical bun furniture feet, but thought it would end up making the overall height too high.  Then I spotted the wood rosettes.  They were only 3/4" thick and would make perfect little feet if installed upside down.

And so, on Saturday morning with a little help from the hubby, we cut the shelf down to create something for the box to be attached too.  We also created a top for the foam pad to be attached to.  After the box part was all assembled, including the cute little feet, I painted the edges of the shelf and the feet using some leftover trim paint.  Then he also helped me staple gun the fabric to the top.  We only used a piece of 1/4" luan plywood, so it was very unstable when you pushed down on it due to the thickness of the foam.  There was no way I could have done it by myself.

Then for the arduous part... attaching the cording...

SIX hours and 22 glue sticks later.... VOILA!!!!

My new Ottoman...

About 44 rows of 1/4" wide cording...

The cute little feet...

The BEST part... the lid lifts off and the boys can store the toys the play with in the living room in there.  YAY!  No more cluttered coffee table!  Yeah Right!  I can dream, right?

And now, I have a wonderful little reading spot!

Not too bad for just under $20, and a few minor burns from the blue gun!!