My neighbor’s stool is in my bathroom.

Before this post begins, let’s all take a moment to be juvenile about the idea of stool in a bathroom.

bahahasnortstoolsampleinabathroombahaheeheechortlesnickerchortle.

Alright then.

No further potty humor will mar the otherwise serious reputation that this blog has.

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Free junk: it’s the sort of thing that makes me really excited. My house is full of it. So when I noticed my across-the-street neighbors putting their overpriced yard sale leftovers on the curb, I did a happy dance. I managed to wait, however, until we were in prime garbage-picking conditions (really dark, obviously, so I could unobtrusively be weird as opposed to HELLO-I-AM-GOING-TO-TAKE-YOUR-TRASH-I’M-OBVIOUSLY-NOT-A-NEIGHBOR-LIKE-MR. ROGERS-WOULD-HAVE-BEEN weird) before I traipsed down the road and surveyed the goods. The goods included the obligatory snow globes and figurines that nobody wants even when they are free on the side of the road, but my eyes went immediately to the little item next to the useless clutter. It was hard to see, being dark and all, so I had to pick up said item to get a closer look.

You might say, at that moment, that I sampled some stool.

But I wouldn’t say that, of course, because this blog is serious.

I proudly marched my neighbor’s stool back home, where I announced “Victory!” to Rick, who had already prepared his “I’m so happy for you” face because he had been watching me out the window.

I hope my neighbors weren’t also watching me out the window?

Anyway, this stool of my neighbors has already undergone a makeover. I did this by placing it in a clean container and under conditions that allow bacteria or other organisms to grow.

I mean, no.

I mean, I spray painted it in Rustoluem’s metallic charcoal and reupholstered the seat in fabric that I got for cheap at—where else?—Joann’s.

Then, I made a no-sew little “pillow” just as an accent to break up the dark going on with the charcoal + navy. The ridiculous process (using leftover items from other projects) includes the following steps:

1) Saw off a cardboard tube to the desired length.

2) Wrap tube in batting; staple; stuff in the ends of the tube.

3) Wrap batting in fabric of choice; hot glue; stuff in ends of tube.

4) Cover old buttons in fabric; hot glue to the ends.

5) Don’t look too closely because you’ll notice it’s a pillow poser…but it does what you wanted it to and it was free.

6) Done.

An expert I am not, but, visually, the solid navy on the seat plays nicely with the large-scale paisley in the shower curtain and the smaller-scale geometric in the rug.

I tried other colors/patterns on the seat and the solid was the clear winner. I mean, we are talking stool here. And stool is solid. Unless you ate too much KFC. In which case--

This post has been cancelled by the Foundation for Less Awkward Blogging.

***Linking this up to Primitive & Proper, Serenity Now, and Tater Tots & Jello!***