Moroccan pouf/Mackenzie Childs inspired Ottoman/ part 1

So the other night me and my boy decided we were going to work on the Ottoman…a job I haven’t been looking forward to but since I had a helper I decided what the hay….I started but I needed a tufting needle so I left it for another day.  The first part of this you might have already seen…even though I edited it with more details and photos.

Originally this was my inspiration…a Mackenzie-Childs tuffet …

I got this ottoman from the thrift store Everything but Grannies Panties for $10.

Step one was getting the tacks off from the bottom. I pried off a total of 91 tacks with my flat-head screwdriver. After taking out all of those tacks the ottoman did not look like I had done anything to it.  In the videos its always cut and dry…remove the tacks and the fabric falls off.  HA…not on this project.

Next step was to take off the bottom.

The material on the bottom was stapled on,  I pried them off with a screwdriver.  I am sure that there is an official tool to do this but it probably cost more than $20.  NO…a screwdriver will do.

So now that I had the bottom off I was able to figure out that the fabric was stretched onto the frame, the welt trim was laid on top of a piece of cardboard for stability and the trim was stapled to the frame, then lastly the lining was stapled on top of that to cover up everything.  The tacks did not seem to serve a purpose beyond decoration.   I don’t think it is going to be that difficult to put it back together.

Next step was to cut out the tufted buttons.

The reason that the cotton is on there is because the holes are drilled in the wood and it gives the thread something to attach to so it won’t go back in the hole.

When I turned it over and took out the buttons (after cutting the strings and removing the cotton) it still did not make that much of a difference.

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Next I went back to removing staples.  The most boring part of the whole deal.  HATED IT.

Under the welt there was another layer of staples

It took me hours to get all those staples out of the welt alone

then I discovered that under the first layer of fabric there was another layer of staples.

I would have been mad about this but the tag indicated this ottoman was almost as old as I am and for me to go through all this trouble to take it apart is pretty good.  When I was born things were made to last forever.  Now-a-days they are made to last for a couplla years.

As far as the staples were concerned…I was done.  There is no way I have the patience to do all that work… so you know what I did?  I got out my roll of foam.  The plan was to cover it all up…fabric and all…

The foam was too wide to wrap it completely  so I cut it in half lengthwise to wrap it around the sides  then I sprayed it with spray adhesive and stuck it to the outside.  Even though I cut it in half I hardly had any foam left over.  I did not have enough to cover the top.. but I remembered I had some in the barn…yessssss. Since it was late at night this was a good ending point.