Our Prairie Home: Pleather, Staples, and Footstools

Its a great morning from Iowa! The caucus is OVER and my phone will finally stop its incessant ringing from robo-calls! Thank goodness! The last couple of days has driven me INSANE! I won't say who my guy was, but let's just say I wasn't pleased with the results. Boo.

Anyhoo...

A couple weeks before Christmas, I decided to tackle this hideously ugly footstool that I got from my favorite little thrift in Waverly, back in the first week of November.

I'm so glad that I have made the habit of doing Friday's Finds! That way, I'm able to look back and see how much stuff cost me. Lord knows it takes me so long to get around to doing things, I wind up forgetting! I paid $7.50 for this little ugly pleather-covered monster. What can I say?
I got a thing for great legs! ;)

I decided to tackle the sucker, but ripping off the pleather was as far as I got. Might have had something to do with the 50 decorative nails and 100 staples that was holding it all on. And pleather tears and gets stuck under the staples. Ugh.

This week, I decided to get the thing done already. I was tired of looking at it sitting on my work table in the office. And since I always take the easy route, I didn't replace any of the foam or filling in it. I'm pretty sure that was horsehair in there. Ew. Gross, I know - but a heck of a lot cheaper! Have you seen how much foam and batting costs??? No wonder its so expensive to have someone reupholster something!!!!

And since I'm an extreme cheap-skate when it comes to some things, I decided to make homemade chalk paint for the first time with this recipe shared on Facebook by Val from 2nd Essence.

1 and a 1/2 Cups Satin Latex Paint

1/2 Cup Plaster of Paris

1/2 Cup Hot Water

Mix Water/Plaster of Paris together, then add paint. Mix well.

I painted her up with a couple of good coats of paint. Man, that stuff dries lickety-split! And better yet, no stripping or sanding. AWESOMENESS!

Then I distressed (wonders of wonders, it only takes a damp rag and a little rubbing!) and waxed it with a finishing paste.

And then I set about pulling more staples that I had considered leaving and thought, "Nah... Better not." Scissors work wonders in a pinch.

Next, was figuring out how to cut the fabric and get it on without it looking like a complete idiot did it. I bought a yard and a half of the fabric from J-A Fabs. Plenty to do the footstool and the chair, with enough left over if I screwed up.

See all the staples??? Yeah.
Had to pull 'em all - after I had already pulled a hundred of them as it was!!!

Since I'm a complete novice at doing something like this, the toughest part was the corners and figuring out how to fold them in to give it a uniform finish. And since I'm a total blond, I would forget corner to corner how I did the first one. LOL!!!!

The bottom isn't pretty, put who's going to turn it over and inspect it? If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have folded the edges over to give it a more finished appearance. Hey, we're all about full disclosure here! ;) If you ever visit me, I will tackle you if you try to look underneath it! HA!

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. The fabric is a little heavy for the dainty-ness of the legs, but I was going for something that my kid or my cats couldn't destroy. Its a good thing too. Silly Marley figure it was her new cat bed, literally as soon as I finished taking the final pictures. Actually, I kept having to shoo her away so I could even take the pictures!! Why is it that my cats always find something I've worked on and must inspect it and then if they can, lay on it??? (I am NOT a cat person, I just keep them to deter the mice - and occasionally snuggle on my lap. LOL!)

And so you won't have to scroll up to see what she looked like before and because I'm helpful like that...

BEFORE: