Family Heirloom Toybox Makeover

There was a piece of furniture in Henri's room that had been bothering me for some time. It was a toy box that Brian's father had made for him and his sisters when they were kids but it had seen better days.

The finish was chipped on the top and bottom and the lid had become unhinged on the right side. But this wasn't the sort of thing I could discard of course! So yesterday I sanded it down and refinished and sealed it and sewed a pillow top for the lid. Here's the finished version.

I used an redwood tint which had a orange tone for the box to match the grey, orange color scheme in the room. The stain and sealer I had leftover from a previous project. I just ran down to the hardware store and bought 2 sponge brushes, sandpaper and hardware to fix the lid. That totaled $15.

My local fabric outlet has a table where the fabric bolts are only $1 per yard. That's where I bought the grey fabric in 1 yard for $1. The spotted orange and white fabric I bought at Joann's for $3 something and the oversized piping filler I also bought at JoAnn's for $1.07 a yard with a coupon. The letters I made with Silhouette heat transfer material which I already had on hand. And I used a piece of 4" thick memory foam for the stuffing which I had leftover from a toddler bed no longer being used. All together the pillowtop materials I had to purchase totaled $12.

BTW. I've found that it's always cheaper and more attractive to make your own piping. The selection for piping is so limited and still so expensive. The smaller, plain black piping I was going to buy was $3.59 a yard with a coupon! I bought 7 yards of the piping filler for $7.50 and the one yard of polka dotted fabric for $3 and only spent around $11. If I had bought 7 yards of the thinner, plain black piping it would have been $25.13. What a ripoff!

So, total for this project I only spent $27 and it's a HUGE improvement. Totally worth my time and investment.