Wife on a Dime

$5 Stool Makeover

I found these $5 stools at Five Below recently and figured they’d make a great plant stand or stool so I grabbed one.

When I got home with it I was very curious what was under the fabric so I pulled it all apart and found some cheap wood on top and a hollow inside. Not very pretty but super sturdy! You could easily just leave the fabric on and recover it with another fabric over top and avoid ripping it apart.

There were tons of staples in the sides and top so I ripped them all out with a small pair of pliers. The wood needed to be sanded on the edges and a little on the top. I decided to make tassels to hang around the sides to cover the gap in between the two tiers.

Roughly measured how long I’d need the tassels to be to cover the space.

I already has this rope which is from Hobby Lobby near the string and beads. It was pretty cheap and if it’s not on sale you can use the 40% off coupon on it.

I folded the rope twice over the thiner string, also from Hobby Lobby. Then I took a medium sized rope and wrapped it twice around the large rope and hot glued it into place. You can use the smaller rope to do this step if you prefer not to buy 3 kinds of rope but I already had all of them on hand. You can also use twine for this project!

I chose to use the larger rope because it’s easy to unravel and fray into a tassel. You can also wait to trim these once you have them in the stool and make them all match in length.

I added 1 wood bead in between each tassel because otherwise it would haven’t taken me forever to make double the amount of tassels. Plus the beads have it character. They are also from the Hobby Lobby bead section. I sanded the edges and top a bit. I then painted the top with some Ivory chalk paint by Waverly which is from Walmart. It’s in the craft section and super cheap. You’ll only need a little bit.

At this point, all your tassels and beads should be strung on your smaller rope and ready to go on your stool. I just hot glued them on one by one. You don’t have to do it with them on a sting all together but I think it makes it easier.

All done! Currently using it as a stand for my $12 basket from the Dollar General!

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