Project complete: Ottoman/blanket chest

[Tim Solley]

Well last night my wife helped me upholster the top for this ottoman for my soon-to-be-born first child. This was my first try at upholstering anything, and it was amazingly simple and the results came out great. It came out better than I had hoped.

We like this piece so much that it's going to stay in the living room until the baby is born, then come back after he's done breast feeding. The intent was to give my wife something to put her feet up on while breast feeding.

The piece is hard maple, with maple plywood panels. I wanted to do raised panels, but I opted for lighter 1/2" plywood to cut down on weight to make the piece more moveable.

The finish is Behlen Solar Lux American Walnut dye sprayed on, followed by a coat of BLO for grain definition. Then three coats of Waterlox Original Sealer/Finish sprayed on. This was my first piece to be sprayed, and it came out great.

Thanks for looking!

Tim

[Alex Berkovsky]

Tim,
Great job on the ottoman. I see that you're getting a lot of use out of that HF sprayer ;) . When are you guys expecting? Congrats!!!

[Bob Noles]

Tim,

What a nice project! That really turned out beautiful. Did you make it from a plan?

I need to think about one of these for our living room.

[Tim Solley]

Thanks guys.

Alex, as you already know, I'm loving life with that sprayer. I can't get over how good the finishes are coming out with that el cheapo HVLP gun. As for the baby, he's due August 3rd. I have a six drawer dresser and a lamp/night light to build before then. I better get crackin!

Bob, so far I have yet to do a project from a plan. I probably learn a whole lot more just by winging things as I go ;). My plan involved making a simple drawing of what I wanted, with measurements of the overall piece. That's it. This was actually an amazingly simple project.

I started by creating four panels. Two sizes that matched. I then joined the end panels to the side panels with a few biscuits and clamped up, making sure things were square. Now I had a box. I cut a piece of 1/2" plywood to fit the bottom and just glued and brad nailed it. Then I cut the four base pieces and got the miters to fit. Once I had that right I went to the band saw to cut the curves in the bottom and used a sanding spindle in the drill press to clean up. Flipped the box over and glued the base on with some support pieces underneath. Then it was sand and finish time. One thing I learned that really sped things up was to do some sanding work before assembly, especially the panels. I sanded the plywood panels before assembly, as well as the inside lip of the rails and stiles. This was a lot easier than trying to do it while assembled.

Total build time for this project including finishing was about six hours. I would definitely put this in the beginner/intermediate category that just about anyone could build.

Tim

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Time, Very nice project buy my eyes are getting itchy looking at your cat. :)

Great job! Alan in Md.

[Helen Gee]

Hey Tim!

That is a beautiful piece!! And looks like someone has already claimed it ;)

[Tim Solley]

Time, Very nice project buy my eyes are getting itchy looking at your cat. :)

Great job! Alan in Md.

Oh man you better stay away from my neck of the woods then. We have three more where that one came from....and two dogs.

Tim

[Bob Noles]

Tim,

Thank you for the additional comments on the construction of your project. I cannot believe you built something that nice in such short order. I have saved your pictures for study purposes when I get ready to do one. This is certainly one project I would like to do at some point.

btw.... I too am alergic to cats, but my wife has 3 of the rascals. Fortunately, they have their own room and enter/exit door to the outside :)

[John Buzzurro]

Beautiful piece, Tim. Very well done.

[Frank Chaffee]

Tim,
What a beautiful chest!

The woodwork and finishing is great, and the upholstered top makes it very inviting, as your cat has already found.

Congratulations to you and your wife for your first child bearing too!

Frank

[Dave Ray]

Nice work Tim, I like the way you descibed your method of work. Really came out great. Like you say, better get cracking, August is coming up fast.

Dave

[Mark Pruitt]

Great job Tim! Congratulations!

[Corey Hallagan]

Beautiful! That is a really nice piece!

Corey

[Jim Becker]

Kitty approves. Therefore it must be great! (And it is...nice job!)

[Jerry Olexa]

Nice job and spraying turned out well for ur First attempt..

[Deirdre Saoirse Moen]

I see the cat approves, therefore it must be done. :)