I was gifted this old ottoman from my Grand-Mother-In-Law some time ago. I immediately had a million ideas for it, got overwhelmed, and promptly put it in my basement storage room to sit for all of eternity.
Recently, we’ve purchased land (19 acres!) and have decided to build a new house. This will be our “until-the-kids-move-out-of-the-house” house. So my goal is to make the style fairly timeless and elegant. I’ve always been a sucker for timeless, elegant, children’s clothing, but when it came to home decor I pretty much followed whatever trend I was feeling at the moment. I’d like to stay away from that with the new house and stick to more traditional pieces. Luckily, I’ve inherited quite a few pieces from relatives over the years so it won’t be terribly difficult to bring a more grand-millennial vibe to this new house.
If you’ve ever built a new house (or known someone who has), it will come as no surprise to you that it’s a long, drawn out, patience-requiring process. I’m not exactly patient. Sooooooo, the way I combat that impatience is by planning/doing whatever I can before hand. I’ll be “decorating” this house in my head until it’s built. Enter: the ottoman project.
What better way to curb impatience than by teaching yourself something new? As far as I’m concerned…if you are stressed about something….add a new project to your plate and it will completely distract you. Not totally logical, but it works for me.
So. I decided to re-upholster the old ottoman. In order to prepare, I watched several youtube videos. Like this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. I visited an upholstery shop near me several times and asked a ton of questions. So many questions, that they started giving me things for free to get rid of me. Then, I dove in and hoped for the best.
What I learned from watching those videos and from my shop visits is that all re-upholstery seems to be different. Each piece has its own story. The only way to figure out what you’re working with is to start removing the fabric you want to cover. Turned out, this pink ottoman was in fact, not a pink ottoman at all, it was actually a green ottoman. And inside that green ottoman was straw. At this point, I was pretty stumped. I posted a story asking for help on my instagram and you would not believe how many people offered me advice! It was great! The conclusion/plan of attack we reached was this:
- add wood to the top of the ottoman
- drill holes into the wood
- make a thin cover out of felt-like material for the new shape of the ottoman
- tuft a piece of foam, the new cover and my fabric to the top of that wood, with my buttons.
- Leave the fabric super long so that it could be pulled to the bottom of the green ottoman and stapled in place, holding the piece of wood to the top of the ottoman.
- then add a piece of “welting” (glorified, giant piping) to the wood on the top of the ottoman, then add a pleated skirt to that welting.
- add hardware and legs to the bottom of the ottoman
Easy peasy right? Right! And ripe with opportunity to distract me from home building. Y’all, I got to use power tools!
So, in order to “add the wood”, I had to get the wood into the right shape somehow. Fortunately, my husband had a jig saw I didn’t know about and I had a piece of Luon on hand. I do wish I had used a thicker piece of wood (I think 1/2″ would have been better). Using the existing piece of cardboard from the bottom of the ottoman, I drew out my “pattern” on the wood, and then cut it with a jig saw. I didn’t document this as I was pretty sure I needed to focus all my attention on the task at hand.
I then used an electric knife to cut my foam to the same size, I wish I had cut my foam a little larger than my piece of wood but ya live and ya learn. How did I know to use an electric knife? That was one of the tidbits I picked up in the upholstery store…apparently they’re less expensive than “upholstery knives” and exactly the same. Also, I did a ton of research on where to find the least expensive foam. Amazon wins, hands down. Even if Joanns runs a sale, it does not get anywhere near Amazon’s price.
Then I made a new “cover” using the old (the darker pink layer seen in the image above) cover and adding a few inches to accommodate my new foam and board. I did this using gray fabric that I got from the upholstery store. It felt a bit like felt and was stretchy. I did not ask what type of fabric is was actually called (its probably the only thing I didn’t ask). I think it was similar to this. I got mine for three dollars a yard on a remnant bolt.
Now, moving onto tufting. I used these needles and this video for reference.
I stretched my new cover and my fabric down to the bottom of the ottoman and stapled it in place. I also added a layer of cardboard tape around the bottom of the ottoman and stapled this in place. Im not totally sure why I did this but they did it in the videos so I copied. I’m pretty sure its to distribute the pressure of the staples evenly on the fabric. I then added the cardboard that I had been using as a template for everything back to the bottom of the ottoman.
I then made “Welting.” I like to make my own piping for everything…I like it to match perfectly and its inexpensive. I used this cord. I then made my pleated skirt. I did this by measuring to find the right length of fabric, joining three widths of the fabric together, and hemming that fabric with heat n bond tape. I then folded my pleats in and pin-basted them in place. Writing that takes five seconds, actually doing it takes a solid three naps. The time consuming parts were lining the fabrics up perfectly and putting in the pleats. This is also were I have to admit to beginner’s luck a bit…I did not actually do any math to come up with the perfect pleat size to fit the ottoman. God must have been smiling on my enthusiasm because the pleat width and numbers wound up being perfect. I am thankful that lesson didn’t have to be hard.
I then put the welting on the top of my skirt. At this point I added another layer of the cardboard tape over top of the fabric on the ottoman, stapled to the piece of wood that my foam was attached to. I did this because I thought it would help me add the skirt to the ottoman. I was right. Then I attached the skirt to cardboard/wood using a staple gun and nails.
Next I stained and polyurethaned my legs, then I attached them to the bottom of the ottoman using this hardware and VOILA! A brand new, traditional style, ottoman….the world’s greatest distraction from the slow building process 🙂
