In my last Used post I introduced a special project that I was planning. You can read about it here and check out the “before” pic too.

The first thing I had to do was get it out of the basement, which was no easy feat considering the Very Large Piles of Boxes that are down there right now. Thankfully my husband was on hand to help me with this part.

The second thing I needed to do was clean it up a little bit. It was pretty grimy. Wood furniture is also very vulnerable to fluctuations in temperature and humidity, and requires a little extra care every once in awhile… especially this piece, which hadn’t seen the light of day in many years. I used a store-bought oil to spruce it up a bit. (Did you know you can make your own with olive oil and a few drops of lemon oil? It works great too.)

Here are a couple close ups to give you an idea of what I was working with:

In my first post I wrote about making pillows for my trunk, but I wasn’t able to get my hands on my sewing machine right away. I did however, make it to the fabric store for a preliminary shop. Here’s a free tip: don’t rush your trip to the fabric store. You’ll just be overwhelmed. It takes a LOT of time to find the perfect fabric. You need an afternoon to browse, and preferably coffee and snacks for fuel because there are a lot of different fabrics out there.

In the meantime I rigged up a temporary solution. I discovered that my fabric store had pillow covers on sale for a good price. All I needed to do was stuff them! And so I did.

I grabbed an old lumpy pillow we had lying around (I had used it to create an extra layer of padding in our moving boxes and it was destined for the garbage):

… cut it open to remove the stuffing…

… and stuffed the larger of the two covers with the contents. The smaller red one (pictured below) actually has two old misshapen Ikea chair pillows stuffed inside it.

I’m pretty happy with the results so far! I also threw an old scrap of faux fur on the top of the trunk to make it a little warmer. Tis the season!

We are using the trunk to store seldom-used winter gear right now (helmets, skates, long johns etc.) and it’s working out really well so far. Here’s a different view. Kindly ignore the wine bottles, thankyouverymuch.

Now that I have my sewing machine back I’ll finally be able to pick some great fabric and get started on a larger cushion for my new trunk bench. Maybe for my next project I’ll make something to hang on the wall there too… hmm..

Useful links

Your local Used.ca site