I made an ottoman!
I wanted a really specific size and couldn't find anything I liked anywhere. I've never built furniture before, but I've been a crafter my entire life so I figured why not. I'm super happy with how it turned out!
The biggest challenge by far was finding upholstery fabric, which took months. I even tried looking at table cloths and curtains -- which are often cheaper than buying by the yard! (I tried using a blanket but it was too stretchy.) I don't 100% love the fabric I wound up with, but I can live with this for now. It will be really easy to reupholster if I ever find the perfect thing one day.
Anyone else have a fun DIY project these days?
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6 years ago- 6 years ago
- 6 years ago
tlbb -- two layers of strong particle board, equally sized. for one of them, I created a frame from 1x3 board and glued/screwed it on. I lopped off all corners to make it more rounded. (a really rough chop with a hacksaw, I knew the padding would hide how badly I did it.)
for the bottom half: underneath, I attached these plates. the legs were ordered from Etsy. then I stapled two layers of batting, and then the upholstrey.
for the top half: two pieces of 2" medium density foam. used gorilla glue to attach the two layers together, and to the wood. the foam wasn't soft enough, so I used about 6 layers of thick upholstery batting. that's not typical, but I really didn't want to order any more supplies. (4 layers were cut exactly the size of the top, and the other two layers were bigger-- wrapped around the sides and stapled down.) I didn't glue the batting because it grips to itself and the foam, kind of like velcro.
once the upholstery was sewn to my liking, I wrapped and stapled.
to attach top and bottom together, I literally drilled a hole in the middle and put in a really strong screw. I stood on it when the screw went in, so that the two pieces would be smushed together as tightly as possible.
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Illustrations (sorry I didn't take many photos!):
here is how it looked with just the raw wood on the bottom half. (and the top half was not finished -- I was still fitting the upholstery. I had to resew the corners a few times before it was tight enough.)
here, the top is on the left, and the bottom is on the right.
here's what it looks like underneath. I didn't bother to finish off the raw edges because honestly, nobody will see it and I was getting tired!
with this design, if I want to make it taller, I can remove the plates and put in shims. up to about 1".
before all that, I made prototypes and tested each for a few days. #1 was literally foam on a homemade wood crate with a grey tablecloth stapled on. I learned that it was too wide, too tall, and the foam too hard. I originally wanted a blocky ottoman with no feet, and learned that style would look bad in this living room.here's what prototype #2 looked like. this way I was able to confidently order the right length legs. (pictured here are legs borrowed from a different piece of furniture.)
hope this helps!
Lars