Our New Ottoman

Once day, a long long time ago, I found this AMAZING Quaker Oats wooden crate in an antique store. I maintain that we got it for $15 or less, but D believes it was a few bucks more. The bad part??? It's warped beyond belief. Two corners no longer sit on the ground, and it is a definite parallelogram. Really messed up. Hopefully you can get an idea of this from the picture (can you see the right corner lifting off the carpet?)

My plan was to create a lid for it and use padding to turn it into an ottoman. Instead, it sat (upside down!) in front of my couch for a few months first because that darn warped box seemed like such an awful project.

I finally did it! My hubby and his dad helped us make this lovely lid, which I then covered in 3" foam and fabric. The lid has two "support beams" on the underside which sit right up against the box, keeping it in place. We also used some random 3/4" trim all the way around to create a little edge to keep the lid in place. Hopefully you can see it in this pic:

That way, we didn't have to damage the box to get the lid to stay on. Also, we can store some things in there. Like the bottle of wood glue that I've forgotten about until now.

We were planning on installing wooden feet on the bottom (two slightly shorter to balance out the warped corners) but that would just make it too tall. And when it's sitting on the carpet, it doesn't wobble much.

I am soooo happy with how it turned out. It definitely was a project, because we had to cut individual pieces of wood specifically since it was so warped. But I'm in heaven.

Also, I tried to find out how much this little box was worth, since I was putting my feet on it. And I found out that the company that's listed on the side went out of business in 1881. I don't know what that means, but it sure makes a pretty ottoman!

Here, have another picture of the pretty wording.