Coffee Table to Upholstered Ottoman DIY

DIY Upholstered Ottoman

Have you even been given something that you are just not sure what to do with?  For us, it was this coffee table.  Some sweet friends gave it to us to use in our basement when we moved to VA.  Unfortunately, we never ended up finishing the basement and so this extra coffee table was just lying around.  

I loved the bones of it, but it needed some DIY attention.  At first I painted it an espresso color with some left over paint from a previous project, but didn't 'love' it.  So, inspired by all the DIY coffee table-to-ottoman posts floating around on Pinterest, we decided to give it a shot.  

We followed the directions found here with some minor adjustments. 

You can see from the above picture, we did not add the wood around the bottom as mentioned in the directions.  I think that step depends on the shape of your table.  

The hubby drilled the hols and I glued the foam down with spray adhesive.  Then covered the foam with a layer of quilt batting- also using spray adhesive. 

After we covered it with the fabric, I used my staple gun to secure it to the underside of the table (using hospital corners on the edges), followed by some (OK, a few hundred) tiny upholstery tacks.  The hubby helped nail them in and it actually didn't take long at all.  We wanted the fabric to be extra secure so it would hold up against our two boys.  They are good at destroying stuff!  Ha!!

 We attempted to make the fabric covered buttons ourselves with a kit purchased from Hobby Lobby.  Unfortunately, the fabric we choose was too thick for the buttons to hold together.  

We decided to take the fabric in to the upholstery shop just down the road from our house and they made the buttons for us using their Tufting machine.   It cost $40 to do this, but it was worth it in the end. 

The directions give a decent tutorial on applying the buttons, but I also watched a few videos about this on YouTube.  Since this project is from a while back, I dont remember exactly which videos on this we watched, but there are soooo many to choose from! 

 You will need a long upholstery needle from the craft store and some upholstery thread, but its actually pretty easy! 

We love the results and get so many compliments!  What do you think?

~Lindsay