no-sew ottoman upgrade

Hi there friends!
Back in September when I was out of commission, a rather unwanted project presented itself. It was almost comical - two days after surgery on both hands which would put me out of crafting commission for a good long time, the fabric on the top of our ottoman gave out. It took less than a week for one small tear to extend the entire width of the surface. It looked awful and I hadn't even gotten my bandages off yet!

True to form, we threw a blanket over the top and left it that way for a good long time, 5 months apparently!

However, I finally got tired of the cover up last week and decided to pull out my tools and to get crafting again. The framework was still very sturdy so I had a feeling I could revamp it pretty affordably. What I have to work with:

Naturally, I started by somewhat-wildly ripping the whole thing apart. It took a lot of elbow grease to get all the staples out, but all in all, it wasn't terrible.

Next, I stopped by JoAnn Fabrics to browse upholstery fabrics on sale. I found a nice, thick woven material with just enough texture and color variation to be a decent cover up for stains. I bought 2.5 yards at $7/yd. Back home, I draped it all over the top to see where the excesses were (fabric looks much better in person, but a bit meh in pics).

I knew it would be too complicated to try to make a separate cushion and upholstered base so I figured I'd just make it all one big piece and ditch the dust ruffle-y bit from the original. Using spare strips of fabric, I strapped the cushion back to the original frame. (I got a good laugh thinking about the 5th Element. Multi-pass, anyone?)

Next, I make triple-layer strips of quilt batting to cover the wooden portion and also to create more of a cushioned seam between the actual cushion and the frame base. I then used strips of extra cover fabric to secure the new batting.

I flipped the cushion top-down onto the back side of my cover fabric and secured it underneath the framework. The corners were quite tricky but I went for a simple folded tuck. No picture because I forgot in trying to figure out the corners - oops. 

Next, I used a 10" upholstery needle to tuft the top with 4 buttons. It took a bit of figuring out but I hadn't done that before. Following another blogger, I secured the stitches around small rolls of extra fabric. 

During this step, I also stained and did a coat of polyurethane on the new feet - $5 ea at Lowe's. We didn't love the rolling feature and since the corner wood had built-in hardware, I decided to just swap them out for something more sturdy. (The straps and brown backing were left intact during the original deconstruction.)

Finally, flip it over and prop up your feet!

It's certainly not perfect - upholstery is not my calling - but Strider and I are both pleased with the upgrade and definitely with the price tag.

Cost of materials to upgrade = $45
Cost of new, similar ottomans from the original manufacturer = $350

Worth it, don't ya think?