How-to: upcycle an ugly storage box

Another guest post today. This time from an industrious crafter, Holly Atkins, who is also a very old friend. Every time I go round to her house she has redecorated another corner, done something clever in a picture frame, made a cushion or done a bit of random furniture pimping... 

...such as this chirpy, classy seat/storage box:

Which started off looking like this...

Over to Holly for a bit of detail...

"This was a gift from my hairdresser's flatmate, who was chucking it out. Somehow I managed to wrestle it home on the train and bus. I liked the fact it had a lid and thought I could make a cushion for it. It was probably from MFI.

I started by filling the big screw holes with wood filler and then I gave the whole thing a thorough sand inside and out (which resulted in horrible orange dust everywhere!). 

Then I gave it two coats of undercoat (again, inside and out). After that it got another sand. Next it got two coats of Farrow & Ball gloss in French Gray, inside and out.

Finally I had a piece of foam cut to the correct size to make a cushion pad [if you're in south London, Southern Foam in Clapham Junction is excellent] and whizzed up a removable cover on the sewing machine.

I remember feeling a bit trepidatious as I approached the stool cushion, as I'd only ever made flat cushions before – and not even very many of them. There are, as it turns out loads of different ways to do it. The way that felt easiest was to cut the fabric exactly as for a flat cushion and then cut out four extra strips of fabric; one for each side of the cushion. Then I sewed the strips between the top and bottom pieces. The advantage of this method is that you get nice sharp corners to the cushion pad.

Once I'd worked that out it was very quick to make: and hey presto, a good storage box for all my sewing stuff as well as a perfect stool to sit on at the computer."