Possibly The Worst DIY Post EVER | Life Love and Hiccups: Possibly The Worst DIY Post EVER
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Wednesday 1 October 2014

Possibly The Worst DIY Post EVER

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So, I had all the best intentions to put together a fancy DIY post for you today on how to make an insanely cool slip cover for an Ottoman.

In my ambitious mind this post was going to go nuts on Pinterest, DIYers all over the world were going to pin the crap out of it and Better Homes and Gardens would call me up and offer obscene amounts of free product from Bunnings in return for me joining their show as the Ottoman Queen.

Or something like that.

"Yeah, so how'd that work out for you?" I hear you ask.

Weeeellll it kinda didn't really. Work out that is. And the reason would be because clearly I underestimated just how much I suck at creating DIY posts on how to make an insanely cool cover for an ottoman.

In fact, it is sheer luck I even managed to finish this project at all given I nearly threw the damn thing in the pool, twice, because I hated it so much and I wanted it to suffer like it was making me suffer.

I wanted this ottoman to cry and beg for my mercy. Not that I am condoning cruelty against innocent furniture or anything, except for in this case, because this ottoman was pure evil.

Bastard of a thing!

I picked this shabby old thing up from the roadside last summer.



Actually I paid my oldest son 5 bucks to jump out of the car, grab it and chuck it in the boot for me because there were people standing out the front of the house where it was dumped and I didn't want to look like I was a desperate scavenger. Even though I was a desperate scavenger and I was worried that if I drove around the block or waited for those people to move, some other lucky bugger would pay her kid 5 bucks to grab it and I would never see that scabby ottoman again.

So into the boot it went whilst I pretended to shake my head and mouth "kids" with a what can you do shrug at the people watching us.

The ottoman came home with us and lived happily ever after ... in our garage, taking up valuable space whilst I figured out what the hell I was going to do with it.

Finally, just yesterday I decided I would recover it with some funky fabric I had nabbed at Spotlight a while back and once again I was excited about that roadside score.

Slight problem though - my dear husband had taken it to the rubbish skiff at his work only a day earlier.

"Where's my Ottoman from the garage" I demanded hysterically of Carl.

"I threw it out" came his slightly panicked reply.

"WHY would you do that?" I squealed desperately like someone had just thrown out the biscuit tin with our life savings stashed in it.... (not that we actually own biscuit tin with even a single dollar in it, but that's totally beside the point).

"Because it sat there in the garage forever and you hadn't done anything with it" he explained far too calmly for my liking.

"Cause I wasn't READY, but I'm ready NOW, I'm ready to do something with it and now I don't have it and I have all this fabric and I was going to write this really awesome blog post that was going to go nuts and Better Homes and Gardens was going to..... I NEED that ottoman. You HAVE to get it back. PLEASE!" I begged of him.

An hour or two later (bless that man of mine) my ottoman was resurrected from the dead and we were ready to roll.

So I started taking before photos, you know to show how ugly it was before it's incredible transformation and all that, and then I set to work unscrewing legs and pulling out staples to remove the old faux leather cover.

The bastard of a thing didn't like me doing this, nor did it like me either and it stabbed me multiple times with a sharp metal staple like some kind of possessed pouff before Carl stepped it and took over the staple removal for me.



Finally I was ready to cover it with my chosen fabric, except now I discovered that the fabric I had wasn't wide enough to cover it without actually sewing pieces together.

"Damn flipping ottoman mmmph grgr mmph" I mumbled as I set about cutting squares of fabric to sew together.

I dragged my sewing machine out of the cupboard and set about trying to sew all the pieces together, only to discover about one panel in that I really had no idea what the hell I was doing.



"I NEED A GIN AND TONIC PLEASE" I shouted to the hubby from my lady cave where I was wrestling with pins and fabric that did not want to co-operate.

I swore a lot and I stabbed at that stupid thing with pins and scissors. I sewed like a psycho between enthusiastic sips of my G&T and desperate Google searches on how to sew an ottoman cover.

Until finally - TaDa. The freaking thing was covered and I was spent... and semi tanked on G&T.


So I don't have a fancy pants DIY post to present to you today on how to sew an insanely cool ottoman slip cover. But I do have an Ottoman covered with blood sweat and tears and fabulous black spots.

Oh and here's a link to a great DIY how to post on how to make an ottoman cover from some clever clogs who has probably being pinned to high heaven by now and is figuring out what to wear on her Better Homes and Garden debut.

Whatever.

You can't win em all.

Have you scored anything awesome roadside lately?
Taken on a project that drove you nuts?