Finally found my footstool. Part one

I’ve been on the hunt for a footstool for a very long time now, I even found a promising one on ebay which I bought but unfortuantely it didn’t work out.  I then waited and waited and WAITED for an invoice for it (as it needed postage adding) but in the end the company obviously didn’t want any money as after a month I gave up all hope of receiving it and requested a cancellation.  Daft chuffs.

So, when my friend Gemma said she was getting rid of some furniture I jumped at the chance.  She had a rather lovely footstool she didn’t want and so we struck up a bargain to swap it for my Cath Kidston Laptop bag that I don’t use anymore.  Today inbetween all the manic printing, whilst waiting for my fabrics to dry, I’ve started the renovation job.  I’ve just realised I forget to take a before picture, but to be honest it looked so pretty that you’d have all screamed at me for changing it so I’m glad I haven’t now.  The idea is to make several different tops for the footstool so I can cover them in different fabrics.  It’ll be a nice way of showcasing the fabric and I can photograph the footstool with other matching items such as the cushions and lampshades.

Firstly I carefully removed the fabric Gemma had upholstered the stool with so I could access the board underneath.  This is just a temporary removal as I’m going to pop the fabric back on again as it’s so lovely.  Here is the base without the top, I think it’s made from cast iron, it’s definitely heavy enough!

As you can see, it’s a nice pale blue colour, I’m going to repaint it cream or white so that it will suit a number of different fabrics and colours on top.

Below is the top without the fabric, it’s got some very old foam on it and what looks like a piece of hardboard for the base.  I’ve used this as a template so I created a paper copy I could use to make more of them.

I had a few spare pieces of mdf from when we built the shelves under the table, that’s what I’ll replace the top with.  I hate MDF, not very environmentally friendly at all but unfortunately it was the best material for the job and the offcuts have come in handy here.

I can actually fit 6 tops on this piece of MDF offcut, not sure I’ll need that many but it might be handy to have them as my fabric collection changes.  Tomorrow the spray painting begins!