Adventures in Refinishing: The Ottoman

I have a tendency to become easily obsessed with things. It's the reason that I can't keep Oreos in the apartment.

It's also why, on one of the coldest days in recent memory, I just needed to take far too many trips (through the frozen tundra) to Home Depot while I figured out how to refinish this ottoman.

My parents, knowing that I will gladly take any of their unwanted stuff, offered it to me a few weeks ago while we were cleaning out their basement. I didn't know exactly what to do with it at first, but I figured that I could at least take a stab at refinishing the wood, recovering the cushion, and obviously fixing the broken legs.

I really liked the curvature detail on the sides, but upon closer inspection and a little sanding, I saw that they were made out of some kind of chipboard or particle board. That wasn't really conducive to my plan, since I eventually decided that I wanted the wood to be exposed, and unpainted chipboard isn't the prettiest thing to look at. (But! It turns out that the legs are made out of a really nice...pine? I actually don't know exactly what kind of wood it is, but I know that it's real.) After obsessing over how to deal with the chipboard, I just decided to cover them up with wood. The problem with that, of course, would be that I would have to cover up the curved detail that I liked. I like it better with the new wood, though! The cleaner lines lend themselves more to the style of my place, I think.

My obsession with this little project ended up teaching me a few things that I haven't quite encountered before. Taking apart old furniture, stripping paint (a process that had me questioning my sanity), recovering cushions, fixing broken parts, and TUFTING. I'm entirely too excited about the tufting process being so easy! All the things will be tufted from this point forward.