Re-Upholstered Ottoman Project

I had this idea for this project from an ottoman I purchased from the thrift store for ten dollars. It looked pretty decent already, but you could tell it was pretty worn down. There were definite signs of use from the previous owner. On one side of it there was an unknown orange stain that can only be seen in really bright light. I felt the functionality of this ottoman was worth saving! I had this ottoman for a few years and what really got me excited to finally upholster it was when I discovered the maker grant while perusing Facebook!

I applied with my idea and a few weeks later I received an email saying my project was selected! Thus, my journey on reupholstering this project! I had prior knowledge of upholstering from my friend whom helped me reupholster a couch and chair. Those projects came out pretty great! This would be my first upholstering job by myself and the deadlines involved, made me do the project.

This is the project from the start:

Not a bad looking ottoman, in fact, most people asked me why bother when I could go buy one? Well, you'll see why reupholstering was a worthy project because the materials I used were quite costly if this were a piece of furniture in a store.

The materials I used for the project are as follows:

• Velvet upholstery fabric (purchased from Joanne's Fabrics)

• Cotton rope

• C.S. Osborne No. 124 Staple Remover Tool

• C.S. Osborne No. 120 1/2 Staple Lifter Tool

• Miscellaneous Brand Staple Remover Tool

• Sewing Machine

• Sewing Pins

• Upholstery Sewing Needle

• Heavy Duty Upholstery Thread

• Leather Sewing Machine Needles / heavy duty needles

• Seam Ripper

• Makeup Foam Blending Pads (unusual, but worked for my project!)

• Staple Gun

• Staples

• Hot Glue Gun

• Hot Glue Sticks

• Screwdriver

• Pliers

• Scissors

• Vintage Persian Lamb Fur Coat

One thing most people know about me already is that I love to upcycle fabrics that I find at various thrift stores into something beautiful. This torn lamb fur coat was screaming to me to buy it. It was in such a sad state with some tears throughout. Persian lamb itself is very soft and labor intensive to make. To see this fabulous coat go to waste was not something I was going to let happen. This precious coat probably cost the owner at least a couple thousand dollars to buy back in the day! If you google Persian lamb fur coats, they are still sold at stores like Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue!

So here's the teaser, the finished product:

What a beauty right?!

So here are some pictures outlining how I made the ottoman:

I started with the top first by unscrewing the screws.

Then, I used my staple remover tools to begin to take out the staples. Pliers were used to pull out stubborn staples.

These were the tools I decided on to do the project. I think the C.S. Osborn No. 124 was my favorite tool. Once you figure out how to use it, it was the most invaluable one! The black one on the right was also great! Most old school upholsterers I saw on YouTube were all using the C.S. Osborn No. 120 with a hammer to remove staples. Personally for this project I felt the No. 124 was the most valuable! Also, the upholstery black tool was okay. I thought it made things go along quite nicely as well since it not only pulled the staple up, it also has a latch that lifts the staple up without it flying!

Here's a picture of the jacket as I started seam ripping the bottom:

At one point I had to use some scissors to cut the liner from the fur. Here's a picture of a hole I had to patch with a leather patch. I just simply glued a piece of fabric over it, good as new!

Here is a picture of the coat before I started measuring:

I used all of the original foam for this project, but I added some makeup foam to cover up the button holes that compressed the foam down.

I found more rips but I thankfully worked around it when I was measuring the coat to cut.

This section near the arm proved to be difficult to work around, but I managed to patch it. With the lid planned out, I started removing the staples from the base. This is the ottoman flipped upside down. Now, I'm taking apart the bottom of the ottoman.

This black tool was great for this task! The staples popped right out!

I had a tray that I kept emptying the staples into, so my apartment wouldn't be littered in them!

The thing about upholstering is always removing the staples carefully and saving every single section of fabric you get off of the original project, so that you have a template to make the new material from!

Yay! Finally a blank slate to work from!

I had to carefully seam rip the fabric pieces, so that I had templates to work from.

Now, I lay the template on my velvet fabric and cut!

One thing I didn't have a picture of was the part where I accidentally sewed the cording trim I made on backwards on this piece. Seam ripping it and re-sewing it was so annoying and time consuming. Don't make the same mistake! Don't forget to always pin, put it on the item you're upholstering and make sure you're doing it once!

Then, I pinned everything to make sure that it fit the ottoman before I sewed it.

It looked great, so I took the fabric to my sewing machine to sew. What isn't pictured is the velvet cording I had to make for the ottoman out of cotton cording and the velvet fabric. You can google how to make your own cording!

Now the fun and difficult part. I had to take staples out multiple times to get it to fit nicely. This was a very tedious process, but I'm glad I did it to get the result I wanted!

More stapling! This was the most fun! I loved attaching the bottom on because that meant that I was almost at the finished with my project!

Then, I stapled more velvet cording on the bottom to make it look snazzy! I attached the fabric from the liner of the jacket on the bottom of the ottoman and screwed on the old legs of the ottoman. This was actually quite hard to center correctly. It looks okay, sorry I didn't have a picture of the process. I considered buying new legs, but for now, I think these suffice.

Last but not least, the lid. This was quite hard!

The hurdles I struggled with this project was the condition of the jacket itself. It was already in poor condition and the size was not quite adequate. I had to hot glue the underside of the lid portion where I had to screw in the new holes where the jacket didn't reach all the way around. It was a two inch section that I felt was a failure on my part due to a measuring error. Also, the fact the fabric was from a jacket made the sizing a little hard. I had to cut it over past the arm sleeves to make sure it fit. Word of advice, never cut the coat until you are sure you have enough to cover all the way around. I thought I had plenty, but I didn't. It isn't noticeable, but I know that I made a shortcut in this instance where I had to glue on extra to cover my mistake. The black cover for the lid covered the mistakes I made in measuring the coat, but if someone in the future were to take the ottoman apart, they would be disappointed.

TA-DA! Finished!

After completing this project, I wish I had reupholstered the interior of the ottoman in a new fabric for aesthetic purposes. I didn't have it in my budget to buy more fabric, so I left it as is. I used the existing old fabric to do it and now that I am thinking about it, I do not want to take it apart again and re-sew everything. It still looks quite nice and I love resting my feet on it when I am watching movies. I'm so thankful for the RH Maker grant that allowed me to do this project! I hope this inspires you to reupholster something!

My next project I want to consider doing is possibly a chair or table!