Went to upholstery this morning. Stool is is so nearly finished. The problem was that none of us could work out the right way to put the hinges and piston lifts back on. After a couple of false starts we got the hinges on but not the lifts. The stool is all lined in fabric so of course every time we screw into it a hole appears - not good if it’s in the wrong place! In the end I decided to replace the lifts with strips of fabric- will do the same job of stopping the lid falling backwards over 90 degrees and straining the hinges. Didn’t have the right colour thread to sew the strips though, so got on with stripping down my next project.
When I got home I decided to go to dfs ( where the stool originally came from) to see if they had anything with the same mechanism. Success! Ji is coming round for coffee on Friday to help me attach either the fabric or the lifts- not sure which one to go with yet!
Called into a couple of shops whilst I was close. Managed to get some orchids at a bargain price. I like to have 4 ina big pot on my table , so think I saved about£20 on usual ikea prices