Lux Without the Bucks

Newest design infatuation; starburst mirrors. Golden starburst mirrors. Big golden starburst mirrors! The gold matches so gorgeously with turquoise and black, such a rich color combination, and i know that i could make this so quickly with some gold spray paint and wooden dowels which is a bonus because long projects are expencive and time consuming.

Upon entering Crate & Barrel i knew i could live there! Such beautiful decorations! I found a lamp there that i want for my entranceway but with a black lamp shade (the squat round one). However, the pricetag is reddiculouuus.. what to do what to do..

And lastly to finish off my post for today, i got the boyfriend's parents to get my some antlers!! They run a hunting lodge soooo that means win win win for me because my house is going to look so boss.

With a price tag up to $800 before tax, I convinced myself and my boyfriend that making one was needed. And because I have an infatuation with pallets, I reasoned that if I put two and two together, a glorious ottoman-pallet lovechild would enter the world. And so it began, the biggest project I’ve ever attempted.

I started by stealing some awfully bruised and battered pallets that were almost on their way to the dump.

I brought them home and sanded them down just enough that someone wouldn't kill their hands from a thousand splinters, but not enough to lose the gorgeous beauty of reclaimed wood. Next I dismantled the pallet to choose the planks I wanted and cut down the pallet to 24 x 48 inches.

Then I reassembled the pallet using screws, being careful to space the boards evenly along the frame.

To finish the pallet I gave the wood 3 coats of varathane - the whole thing (back, front, sides, and inside), which brought out a darker brown in the wood and kept the natural stains from its long life.

I then attached four castors that I purchased from Rona onto the bottom. They were about $6.00 dollars each, bringing the total of the ottoman so far to about 27 dollars.

Once this was all done, the boyfriend and I started looking for 6/7 inch thick foam for the seat part. Now this is the crucial money saving part; don’t go to the foam stores, they will cost you $80 and up for a decent-sized chunk of foam for your ottoman. The boyfriend, being the thinker of the two of us, started looking on kijiji for used foam mattresses (yes, these bad boys are probably pee-stained and have indents from where people have slept, but a small price of $20.00 is much less than $80.00). As luck would have it, a family was selling a twin mattress for $20.00 and a queen sized one for $25.00! So ridiculously cheap. I bought the twin one. Once we got it home, yes, I noticed some discoloring but I think it was more like a pop stain or some other drink from a slumber party. Thankfully, there were no sleeping indents which meant that I could use the whole thing instead of trying to cut the outsides off!

The foam was cut 1 or 2 inches larger than the size of my pallet using a large exacto knife, cut larger on all of the sides because the fabric will round out the square edges a little bit.
(See the stains around the area of his hand? Mank.)

Once that's all done, determine where you want your buttons to go on the ottoman, and punch the holes with a metal clothes hanger (or whatever you find that will fit the bill – just push the hanger through to make the hole). Once that was done we enlarged the hole to a one-inch depth only to dime sized in diameter so your buttons will sink down lower when you tuft, but not low enough that they disappear into oblivion.
Because I was using the base of my ottoman as a pallet, I needed ½-inch thick plywood for my buttons to hold onto something, so that was cut to size too. Align the holes of your foam with your wood and mark where you will be drilling holes into the plywood, and drill!

Get 2 layers of 1-inch batting and wrap your foam and plywood to make a nice yummy sandwich of comfort, secure with some hot glue. (It’s not for strength so don’t worry about applying gobs, it’s only there to keep it all in place until you upholster it).

TUFT this trick up.