Speaking of trash (duh), Tim and I found this ottoman in the trash on the side of the road. Except for ugly green vinyl with a huge rip, beat up legs, and rusted feet, it was in great shape. Initially, our plan was to use the legs for another project down the road because of their great mid-century shape. To our surprise, when we got it home we discovered we really liked having an ottoman to go with our arm chair. We decided to try our hand at reupholstering!
*I know this is a horrible before picture, sorry! I can never remember to take one - I tend to just jump right in to a project. Ottoman is in the lower left, in case you can't see it... so bad.
The first step was to sand and polyurethane the beat up legs on the ottoman. Since Tim already had poly from another project, we were able to get that done really quickly.
We found the fabric at Joannes Fabrics. It was on sale so we got all of the fabric we needed for only $6. Back at home, I ripped off all of the vinyl, but I was careful to preserve it to use as a pattern for my new cover (no need to reinvent the wheel). Once I had ripped off the green vinyl, I evaluated the original padding. To my relief, it was still good.
I cut new pieces of fabric, made piping, and sewed it all together. Not easy, but relaxing in it's own way... Cording and thread cost a total of $5. I stretched on the new fabric and stapled everything to the existing padding and base with my handy-dandy staple gun.
The project took a total of about three days and $11. We might stain the legs a darker color in the near future, but for now our ottoman is super comfy and really cute.
UPDATE: If it’s not apparent from everything else in this blog, I can be obsessive and I can’t stop fussing until things are perfect. This ottoman kept looking a little too french-country or something, I’m not sure, just not quite right. I decided the legs needed to be darker for higher contrast, so Tim and I painted them a dark brown (staining them didn’t work because of the old layers of poly, etc.). We didn’t need much paint so we got a paint sample for about $3. Paint samples only come in flat, so we used our extra poly to seal things up and make it shine.
Now I’m much much happier with how it looks, although I might end up making the metal caps of the legs lighter or darker so you can see them better… My obsessing... never... stops...
this is really cool. love it!
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