Pleasant surprise.

I love thrift shopping, especially for housewares and furniture. In fact, most of my apartment is furnished with second-hand items that I've accumulated over the years. It's a direct result of wanting good-quality furniture, but not having much money to spend. I'm also one of 4 girls, so there aren't many hand-me-downs to go around in the family. About two years ago, I was excited to find this cute little ottoman in my local Goodwill for something like $8. I saw a lot of potential in it! Even though it was filthy.

Thankfully, it was upholstered with thick orange vinyl, so it was easy to scrub. And boy, did I scrub! I also cleaned up the wood a bit with Murphy's soap. I always planned on recovering it with a new fabric, but after a while the orange started to grow on me and I ended up keeping it around the way it was. Look how nice the orange looks with my rug.

 I still disliked the vinyl, though and the bunchy edges always bothered me. It was clearly a diy job from long ago. Fast forward to last Saturday, I was looking for a distraction from my moving boxes and decided to take off that nasty vinyl and see what was underneath!

Looks promising.

Had to pull out tons of these tiny, old nails. The little ones were less than 1/4" long.

This is when I started getting nervous that I'd find a big gash in the front of the fabric, or worse!

The upholstery fabric was in perfect condition! It was a little dusty, though, so I vacuumed it really well, and here it is! It's a nice multi-color tweed and still has that orange that I loved. Who ever would have covered up this cool fabric? Who knows, but I'm pleased. It feels like I have a brand new piece of furniture.