Dog Furniture...Recovered Ottoman

Does anyone else buy pieces of furniture specifically for their pets?  My latest was this garage sale find for $3.    

A real bargain, considering that when I was at the neighbor's garage sale & did not quite get the front door closed all the way, Jacie figured out how to get the door open and started exploring the front yard neighborhood.  Panic!  But, she was easily distracted by a dog behind a fence on the same side of the street where she was roaming.  With no leash, her furry little butt was carried safely home.

This lovely (ha!) ottoman is on casters that work.  It's a nice size.  It's in a timeless (ha!) 1970's upholstery.  What more could I ask for?!

So with a little bit of sewing, I ended up with this slip-cover:

It really does look nicer IRL than this photo, for several reasons.

• I need want a new camera.
• This part of the patio is not level.
• The slipcover needs to be rotated 180 degrees.  There were some distortion from wear on this ottoman, so I made a template for the top, & this is the wrong way, obviously.  The slipcover drapes much better when it's on correctly.  
• See above:  it was after 11:00 am and over 100 degrees when I took these photos, so I did not take the time to fiddle around with changing the cover or doing anything else.  It was too hot to stay outside.  (Unless that included a bathing suit & pool.)
• The skirt really does lay nicely, and the piping shows up well.

This ottoman is now located in front of a window that faces the street.  Jacie loves to sit on it and see what is happening in the big, bad world.  She actually got a little pissy when I took it outside for photos.  Princess!

The top is made from recycled jeans, and the rest from fabrics that I had available.  If I were to do this again, these are the changes that I would make:

• The denim is great, but use decorator weight fabric for the rest.  I lined the cotton fabrics on this, but it's not quite enough.  Maybe use an iron-on interfacing if you want to use lighter cotton fabrics?
• Even though there is a distinction of the "top" and "bottom" of the ottoman in the original, I would make the top band part narrower and the skirt part wider.  For this particular ottoman, I think that would work well.

Now, I have two more ottomans, bought for another dog, to recover.  One will become a piano "bench," and the other will go in our bedroom.  Stay tuned!

 

 

Mission: Reorganization

I opened my big mouth, so two of my sisters and I are having a challenge to get some things completed that normally get ignored.  We are doing just one hour a day, Monday through Friday.  I stayed on track for two weeks, and then, well...

...this past Monday was my first official Monday off of work!  Yippee!  Summer!

After the school year ended, I worked on a week-long language arts curriculum writing committee, then completed 3 workshops.  So, I decided to have a completely lazy Monday.  I've been a slacker ever since on the reorganization.  I need to make up some time today, which I'm sure will drag into Saturday and Sunday.

So far with the reorganization, most of what I have done is not noticeable...drawers, cabinets, and such.  But, the shelves above my washer and dryer are noticeably nicer.  These shelves had become a dumping ground for all sorts of crapola.  I even found a stuffed dog toy needing plastic surgery.  Why did I put that there?!

My sisters received both a 'before' and 'after' shot.  I'm waaayyyyy too embarrassed to put the 'before' picture here.  Here is the 'after:'

The two bottles on the center bottom shelf are my homemade laundry detergent and fabric softener.   I keep them in used Simply Lemonade containers.  They got a facelift. 

Jo and Kay, dear sisters that they are, made fun of me.  They think they will get more reorganization done while I am 'busy making labels' for things.  Ha!  I'll show them!  Oh wait!  Those two ancient recipe file boxes sure do need some revamping.  Maybe some fabric Mod Podged onto them to cover the ugliness?  That might be a perfect afternoon project, and yet another delay to the boring reorganization.  (But it does feel good to get some of those boring tasks completed.)