ottoman 101

One of the bigger projects I attempted when redoing my living room was recovering this ottoman. Now, I am by no means a professional at this. Seriously. I am just a girl with some fabric and a staple gun (that I borrowed, no less.) But, it did turn out well and I am proud of what a little creativity can do.

Just, say some prayers before you begin.

Here is what she looked like before the face lift. She was a navy blue and had seen better days. We gave the couch to Goodwill, but I kept the ottoman, thinking it might come in handy someday. Seems I was right about that.

My mom and I bought this gold weave fabric in the discount area of a local fabric store, where I also bought the silk on my draperies. We draped it over the top and two long sides and tucked it in under the top cushion. Then I got out the very scary electric staple gun that was made to staple down carpet and stapled all around the cushion where there was wood under the fabric.
Ok, here I am looking all proud and stuff with the staple gun, but if you notice the outlet on the wall behind me, the gun is not plugged in. I unplugged it EVERY time I stopped using it. EVERY time. I was so paranoid that it was gonna go off and shoot staples everywhere.
Here is my mom posing for this lovely picture. I don't know why she wanted to be pictured like that, but here she is. Welcome to my blog, Mom. You're scarin' the people away.
Then we took more fabric and tucked it around the ends. And stapled more staples with the scary staple gun.
Flipped it over and tucked it under the bottom to staple it down. Flipping it over was fun. I was so scared we were going to hear all the staples pop out and we would have to start over, but it held up. We got everything stapled in and let me tell you the corners were a challenge. I made several phone calls to anyone I knew who I thought might have any idea how to help us and no one else had a clue either. We made it up.

Once it was turned back over, it still looked unfinished. So off I went to Hobby Lobby to get some cording. And I hot glued it in. Yup. Hot glue. Not the scary staple gun. Whew! I can handle the hot glue gun.

I think it finished it off really nicely. My husband was even impressed and he is hard to impress with decorating stuff. And it looks so nice in the room. Without it, there would have been a huge open space in the middle and it would have felt incomplete.

So, if you are feeling brave, have $20 bucks worth of fabric and can manage a scary staple gun, you too can do this project. If you had an ottoman you wanted to cover. And a Mom that makes scary faces but helped you anyway. And a hot glue gun.

Ok, so maybe you won't try this at home.