diy upholstered ottoman

 

A few months ago my husband and I finally tackled a project I've been dying to do for years: an upholstered ottoman. It's silly how simple this project was, I don't know why we put it off for so long! originally I wanted it to be tufted, but this was much simpler and I'm just as happy with it in the end.

 

 

First, we decided how big to make it. To help us visualize it, I taped a rectangle on the rug using painters tape. I'm an extremely visual person, so it helps for me to see what the actual footprint will be. Next, my husband built a simple frame using 1x10 inch boards, with 4x4s in the corners for support, as well as to give us something to screw the legs in to.

 

 

Here's a shot from the inside. Everything is held together with screws. 

 

 

We bought the feet at Lowes. They were around $5 a piece, and I opted not to paint or stain them. I love the look of raw wood right now.

 

Next, he cut the top out of plywood and screwed it on. At this point I decided to change our furniture arrangement, and the original dimensions of the ottoman ended up being way too big. So my sweet husband had to do a little more sawing :) What a guy. It actually ended up being an easy fix, and in the end I'm really glad we (he) cut it down. The photo above is before he made it smaller. It was pretty big.

Next I bought 3" foam at Fred Meyer (the Kroger of the West Coast). I find they have the best deal on foam, it's so expensive to buy it at craft and fabric stores! For other projects I've even bought foam mattress pads at Walmart. I usually buy a full or queen size pad, fold it in half for extra cush, and then cut it to the size I need with a knife or scissors. either way saves you cash-ola.

Using spray adhesive I stuck the foam to the top. Then, I wrapped the top and sides with batting. Fabric stores sell batting meant for quilting that are huge if you buy the king or queen-size. I bought a queen-size so it would cover the whole thing easily a few times.



Next we covered the whole thing with the fabric. We just wrapped the ends like a present, stapled everything nice and tight, and it is holding up great.

The finished dimensions are 30"x42", and it's 15" tall, which for us, is the perfect footrest height.

 

And here's how she looks in the (freshly cleaned :) room. It's finally coming together, though not completely done. I still need to find an end table or two, some more art, bamboo blinds, etc., but I'm happy with where it's so far.

For the most part this was a quick, simple project, but here are a few things I would have done differently:

 

-wash your fabric first. I have a bad habit of not doing this and the fabric has stretched out a little bit; nothing too bad, but enough that I wish I would have preshrunk it first.

-cut the foam so there is about an inch of overhang on each side. this will keep the corners and edges soft. I didn't think about this, so our edges are a little hard still. again, no big deal, but if I was to do it again I would let the foam hang over a little bit.

 

I also sewed some new pillow covers using my trusty envelope cover tutorial. So easy! Boy has this room come a long way from last year!