This is the lovely sight that used to greet me every time I walked into our bedroom. A squished-down-to-nothing, torn up, worn out dog bed with a ratty blanket thrown on top. And periodically, our sweet beagle, Ellie (yes, my blog is named after my little love!) would pull her bed out into the hallway and proceed to tear a hole in a seam and pull out the stuffing. Fuzzy greenish stuffing. Which in turn would get spread clear through my entire house, sticking to everything fabric it came within 10 feet of. Is anyone sensing my dislike of this situation?
Enter Pinterest. I saw this delightful idea one day and thought "oh that's cute, but she'd probably hate it." My Ellie is a bit picky about her bedding. Plus, at the time I thought I wanted to get a stack of old suitcases to make into a bedside table on my side, which is right by her bed (the table by the bed in the picture above is part of my birthday gift from hubby and came after I got the suitcase for Ellie. The old table was awful). I wasn't sure a suitcase dog bed next to a stack-of-suitcases table was the look I wanted. Maybe a little overkill. Although vintage suitcases are super cool. But still.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Ellie would probably love it. She loves soft, comfy, warm things. She loves jumping up into things. She gets cold at night on the wood floor in our room, even through the dog bed and blanket. Then I saw a lovely blue vintage suitcase at an antique store that usually overprices things a bit. Marked $12. Hubby and I went out later that week and looked at another store where we usually buy our
Isn't it pretty?! But oh yes, that is some awful pink lining! Actually, it might not have been so bad if it wasn't completely water stained and musty. Still, once I got the stuffed dog bed down in it (I wanted to use an old pillow, but she wasn't having it!) and she got used to the smell, Ellie jumped right in and happily laid right down. And the rest of the evening, whenever hubby or I got up, she ran into the bedroom, jumped in her new bed, and waited for someone to come in and say it was time for bed! It was too cute.
Anyway, I lived with the lining for awhile, wondering if I could keep it. I have trouble redoing things that are original sometimes. I'm a conservationist at heart. But the musty lining had to go. I have to admit it was pretty fun to tear out, although dusty and gross.
Then time to find fabric. I was stalled at that stage for several weeks. I'm getting better, but sometimes choices overwhelm me. I had to go home several times and just look at the suitcase in our room and visualize what I wanted it to look like. But I finally found a beautiful fabric that I'm just crazy about at Jo-Ann Fabric. To me, it feels vintage and current at the same time. It matches the colors in our room perfectly, as well as the other fabric I have on some accents in our room.
Ah, I could stare at that all day! I also picked up some little legs at Lowe's. They're by the trim section, and I believe the ones I got were around $1.50 each. I sprayed them with Krylon's Ivy Leaf. Love the color, not sold on the paint yet. I thought I'd used Krylon before and liked it, but I had problems with coverage this time. But once it's on, the result is beautiful! Hubby was sweet enough to attach them for me.
I was going to do this project all in one post, but it's getting a little long here! So, I'll leave it here and show you the rest next time!
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