Fireman's Stool

My grandson Joseph is obsessed with all things fireman!  Anything and everything that even somewhat resembles something a fireman might have, he loves it! 

He also likes to sit on the small stools that I have made for our dogs.  They are just the right height for him to sit at the coffee table and eat or play. 

So I wanted to make him his own stool, but I wanted to make it somewhat "firemanish" so to speak.  Here is what I came up with.

I started with an unfinished stool from Joann's fabric store. 

This is a great product that has stain and finish together.  It's great for refinishing furniture and for staining unfinished furniture. 

I stained the entire stool so you could see that it really could be left just with the stain on it.  But it doesn't say "fireman" now does it?

 I cut a piece of 2 inch thick foam rubber and some red vinyl to fit the top of the stool and I stapled the vinyl over the foam rubber.  Now THAT says "fireman"!!  I know he's going to love it!