Lucky Finds

One of my favorite thrills is finding a discarded piece of junk by the side of the road, and knowing that I can give it a new lease on life!

I was recently driving with my daughter and we spotted this disgusting foot stool on the nature strip.



It even had an adjustable feature for angling the cushion.



We did an illegal U-turn and checked that it was in reasonable working order - aside from a very saggy seat cushion, so we packed it into the boot of the car.
A couple of days later, we decided to give it a makeover.

We first took out the staples and removed the seat cushion. This is how it looked inside:



It actually had CARDBOARD rather than foam!! No wonder it was so saggy.

So, our materials list was:


We popped into one of our favorite fabric stores Chee Soon & Fitzgerald where my daughter picked out a lovely floral linen fabric. Cost $50.00 - a bit of a splurge but I figured if it didn't work out I could make something else with the fabric. We then went to
The Foam Booth where we got our foam seat cushion supplied and cut to size for $13.
Then went in to Porters Paints to get a good quality paint. I bought a couple of small sample pots $5 each.

The reupholstering actually didn't take too long once we got started.
I saved the outer wooden edge and cut an extra piece of wood to add strength to the center of the cushion.


Then we covered the foam and wood frame with wadding and stapled it together with the staple gun.



Then I wrapped the wadding with a spare piece of fabric to give strength to the outer layer of fabric.



I finished the edges with some strong upholstering thread and a running stitch as there was too much thickness for the staple
gun.
Then covered the seat with the linen fabric gathering the edges again in the corners.





Cut off the excess fabric and put the cushion aside while painting the wooden frame.
We sanded the frame and then painted it - only needed one small sample pot! Rubbed back some of the paint after it dried with methylated spirits and a rough rag. The whole job took about 3 hours - including the painting!


We are thrilled with the results and love our new little quirky blue footstool!!

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