Renovations by Luke (and a new coffee table)

A couple of days ago, after a great night out together, we walked into the house to a huge surprise. Our precious baby, Luke, barely 4 months old decided to renovate our living room.

We weren't gone for that long, and he's really not normally this destructive. He's doesn't even chew shoes, I never in a million years thought he's eat my furniture. So how could one tiny little puppy cause so much damage?

Luke is not tiny, he's a 60 pound beast. He apparently just really didn't like our ottoman. So he ate it. Hubs was so not impressed. But, I, trying desperately to smooth the waters, and make sure that we still had a puppy in the morning, had an idea. Why don't we just finish what Luke started and start over with the ottoman? I wanted a new coffee table anyway. Hubs was still not impressed, but he's a good sport, so he played along. He started by getting his frustrations out by ripping the crap out of the rest of the pleather with a knife removing the pleather exterior.

Then we took off the hinges. The ottoman was also my secret hiding spot for dvds and games I hadn't put away when I unpacked boxes. It also hides my secret love of the video game "God of War". I suck at video games, which is why I have a cheater's guide, but there is something about beating the hell out of things that is just so stress-relieving. FYI though, it's NOT a kid's game, when they say "M for Mature", they really mean it. I don't even play it when the kids are awake, it's really, really violent. Anyway, I'm digressing.

Ugh, what a mess! So anyway, we'd removed the exterior, took off the hinges and cleaned out all the crap, we found some boards we'd had left over from the kitchen. Hubs measured and cut them to fit the top.
Then I had him cut them again, some in half, some in thirds, all staggered-like, sort of like a wood floor would look. Then he nailed them in with the air gun nailer thingy. I'm sure there's a technical name for it (which I clearly don't know), but it's really just a nail gun connected to a hose and a large air tank.

It was already looking better, but it wasn't quite right, so I used my Valspar Antiquing Glaze, and just rubbed it on the bare wood. THAT made it look cool. The color was different on every board, some lighter, some darker. We hammered some very large nails in, both for effect and make sure the thin boards didn't lift at all. We did the same thing to the bottom of the ottoman, but ran the boards vertically. Here's what it looks like now.

The metal corner pieces were hidden under the pleather, so we just reattached them. I also used a glue gun to attach some jute to the top edge.

The whole project cost me about $3.99 (for the jute), I had everything else on hand. It took probably 3 hours from start to finish. We're really happy with the finished product, it sort of reminds me of driftwood.

Can you believe something this cute caused all this?

I'm thinking he probably did us a favor.