The hardest "easiest" home project ever

*big sigh*

You know how you think you can do something, and it will be so easy, and take no time at all? And then you do it and it never, ever is that easy and ends up taking days and lots more money than you ever thought?

Yeah...me too. It happens all the time which makes me think on home improvement projects (even the seemingly simplest) with fear and trepidation.

But, given enough time, the pain and frustration of the last disaster seems to fade and all the sudden I'm trolling Pinterest looking for ideas for my next project. I give myself pep talks. 'You can do that' and 'It looks simple enough' or 'How hard can it be'.

Let me tell you, pretty freakin' hard. It always is.

Anyways, my Mom gave me her cedar storage chest some time ago. It makes the perfect spot for our animals to sun bath and for Lola to patrol the hood.

But all the animal activity was taking its toll on the navy blue seat cushion. It was starting to show its age. So I got the BRIGHT idea to recover it. Easy, right? Quick, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

After buying new fabric and new padding. The first thing was to remove the seat cushion. No problem.

And then it was time to get rid of the old fabric. Demo is ALWAYS the easiest part.

Then I ripped off the old padding and set down the new stuff so I could trim it down to size.

I bought spray adhesive, because that's what I have always seen the pro's do on HGTV but of course it didn't work. But whatever, I pressed on. Laying the fabric out on the floor, I put the bench on top and got ready to staple it in place.

And this, my friends, is where the project went down hill fast. We were out of staples for our staple gun. So Jeremy runs to the hardware store around the corner and buys a new box. But the staples don't fit. We both head back up there and decide to just buy a new staple gun, and surely the box of staples we just bought will fit. But they don't. Jeremy goes back AGAIN and buys another box of staples....and they still don't fit.

By this time, Jeremy is a little....frustrated and has sworn off stepping foot outside of the house for the rest of the night. My "easy" makeover had to be put on hold for the evening.

The next morning Jeremy goes to the big box handy man store and buys yet another box of staples...that do not fit. This totally pushed him over the edge and he washed his hands of my silly little redecorating job. So I take the directions to the new staple gun up to the hardware store and speak with someone that works there. He is adamant that the staples we bought should work even though I tell him they don't. He asks me to bring in the staple gun and we would find the right fit. So after another trip back home and back to the hardware store, with staple gun in hand, I find the staples I need...with no help from anyone since my oh-so helpful store employee was no where to be found. I head to the register just to find out that my debit card was left at home *groan* so I had to use a credit card...for staples. When I got out to the car, I opened the box of staples and made sure those *bleepity bleepers* fit before I left the parking lot.

To recap, that was six trips to the hardware store.

By this time, I'm just about over this stupid project so you get no pictures of me stapling the fabric into place. It was a frenzy of cursing and maniac laughter.

After that I recruited Jeremy to help me put the bench back on the top of the chest. He came willingly...which surprised me after the last two days frustration.

After a little unscrewing and re-screwing, the stupid thing is recovered and back in place. Which is good, because I was about ready to chuck the thing out the window. And I'm never doing another "easy", "simple" home project ever again.