This Thrifty House: Grandpa's Foot Stool Re-do

The oldest piece of furniture that we own is this little wooden foot stool:

(Which is currently actually used less as a foot stool and more as a road block so our little munchkins can't get into the TV cabinet and mess around with all the videos and DVD's that are kept under there).

It actually used to be just a short little table--It was my grandparents--and I believe it was one of the few things that they brought with them when they immigrated to Canada from South Africa many years ago.

It was given to me when I was in high school and it sat in my room for many years with my Ghetto Blaster on it. After I got married we turned it into a foot stool by adding some foam padding, batting and fabric to the top. It has looked like this for around 10 years--and I have been thinking it could use an update--but have not been able to find any fabric that I liked UNTIL the other day at Walmart I found THIS FABRIC:

I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT!!!

So here the project starts!

I decided I wanted to paint the legs a darker brown to match the fabric better. So I cut open a garbage bag and taped it around my existing fabric. (Even though I was going to remove the fabric--I didn't want paint to seep through and get on the batting and such--so I decided to just cover it up)

Next I took it out to the garage and sanded down the legs with a fine grit sand paper.

I wiped them down to get rid of any dust and debris. Then I got out my trusty friend: SPRAY PAINT.

After a couple coats the legs were looking PERFECT!

Then I took off the plastic and went to work removing all the old staples and fabric. (BEING CAREFUL NOT TO SCRATCH MY NEW PAINT JOB!)

Just as a side note: whenever I upholster anything--I ALWAYS staple the batting down separately BEFORE adding the fabric on top. That way if you ever want to change out your fabric later on--you don't have to start ALL OVER.

So this is what was left after removing the fabric.

The batting had shifted a little over the years and pulled away in some areas. So I just repositioned it over some of the areas and re-tacked it.

Next I started stapling my fabric around the under side edges of the table. I turned the fabric under about 1/2 " as I went--so it had a nice finished edge.

I did all my sides this way right up to the corners.

So when I got to the corners they looked like this:

There was too much fabric there to tuck in nicely--so I trimmed them off to look like this:

Now there are many ways to finish off the corners--for this foot stool I wanted it to look the same from all the different angles--so I just folded down the excess fabric in kind of a gathered pattern around the edge. Then I stapled it in place.

And that is it! My Grandpa's little table is now an AWESOME little foot stool.

And here it is in its natural habitat as a road block in front of our TV cabinet (That needs a make over too--I know!).

AND YES--I did say the words "Ghetto Blaster" earlier on in this post, and YES that is the original Nintendo System. And YES, we have BLUE CARPET. I LOVE the 80's--minus the blue carpet thing! But there are SOME THINGS that even spray paint can't fix!

OK--my Favorite Part...

BEFORE: