Ballard Inspired Burlap Foot Stool

My latest project was another Goodwill Re-hab. My inspiration can be found on page 47 of the latest copy of the new Ballard Catalog. That is where you will find a foot stool that looks a lot like the one I just made. The price was $129.00. I kid you not!!

Such a sad and lonely little foot stool. I’ll bet it was the hit of the party back in the 1970’s. I paid $4.49 for it at the Goodwill and took it home for an easy project. Well, I knew I could I could fix this little baby up to look just like new and I could include a few of my favorite touches like covering it in Burlap. Not only is Burlap CHEAP… I really do like the look of it. And then I thought I would use my new question mark stencil.

The first thing I had to do was remove the wood legs which was very easy because they simple screwed on and off and then I gave them a couple of coats of black spray paint.

I turned a box over and screwed the legs into the box so that they were standing straight up which made it very easy to paint them with out any paint runs or smudges. (This is a great way to spray paint door and cabinet knobs too.)

I wanted my foot stool to look nice and plump and have some loft on top so I cut out two pieces of high loft quilt batting (very cheap at Walmart for around $5.00 for a bag.) and wrapped the top piece with it and stapled into place with my upholstery stapler. This kind of stapler is a must for projects like this and they are not very expensive. I purchased mine from Lowe’s a few years ago.

Next step was to cut out a piece of Burlap to go over the batting and cover the top. I used a steam iron to press out the wrinkles before I stapled it into place.

As I stapled the burlap to the top piece, I folded the edge under for a more finished edge.

I screwed the legs back into place before I had a chance to paint them in this photo to see how they fit and trimmed the underside of the corners.

Rest assured that the newly painted black legs look fabulous on the finished product.

And here it is. The total cost was about $8.00. I guess you could say I saved $121.00. Cha- Ching! And this is so easy to change when I get tired of the Burlap or the Question Mark…I can just re-cover it again with some decorator fabric. But for right now I am happy with the Question Mark. It gives it air of mystery don’t you think? :)

I am adding this post to Cottage Instincts....Come see all the other How-To projects!!

And there are more projects to see over at The Twice Remembered Cottage.