Design inspiration can happen anywhere! For me this project was inspired by some ugly avocado paint colored furniture legs on clearance at the Habitat ReStore. (You read that right? Clearance in the salvage/thrift store?) Yes!
Hiding under the ugly avocado paint were these great metallic feet on sleek mid-century legs. Keep in mind you can’t hide the style of furniture with paint! You can change a lot but not the shape. I knew when I saw them that I wanted to use the legs to create an ottoman, something with an interesting shape.
The Design
When you’re designing a piece of furniture from scratch you need to let each part of the design help you make the decisions about the next part. For example, I began with the four legs; they were modern and fun. I then went hunting for fabric that would work with a Mid-century style leg but also look fresh and fun. I love the black and gold fabric I found! Those colors told me what color to paint the legs. And finally, the stylized flowers in the fabric design helped me decide the ottoman should be round.
You don’t need to know every part of the design from the beginning, just like I could never go thrift store hunting for four mid-century legs. It’s an adventure and what you find you let lead you to something fabulous!
The Materials
- 4 furniture legs (12″ tall) Tablelegs.com has lots of versions in many different styles, if you are using found legs screw each leg into the attachment plates before you build the ottoman to make sure they are structurally sound!
- One 24″ wood round (pre-cut and sanded from Lowes)
- 4 angled top plates with screws to attach legs (my Home Depot did not carry these, Lowes did)
- Spray paint to finish the underside
- 3″ foam rubber – enough to cover the entire top
- 1 yard of your fabric of choice
- Spray adhesive – to attach the foam
- Staple gun and staples
- If you have to strip paint or clean old legs to re-paint clean first with Simple Green – it does a great job and is less toxic than some of the other options
The Process
- I stood my legs in Simple Green overnight and then removed the old paint from the metal feet with an old toothbrush
- Wash, prime and paint your legs, leave to dry
- Spray paint the underside of your wood base and your angled top plates so they look more finished
- Attach your foam to the top side of your board with spray adhesive – I used scraps to fit our budget so I added some spray in between the pieces as well.
- Cut the foam to the size of your ottoman
- Lay your fabric on a flat work surface design side down, smooth out any wrinkles. Place your ottoman foam side down in the center. Pulling the fabric taught (but not tight enough to make it wavy) put a staple in the middle of each side. (The video explains this step by step)
- Continue to staple close together all the way around, trying to avoid wrinkles on the side, the more staples, the less wrinkles!
- Attach the top plates to the underside of the ottoman top, with the screws provided.
- Screw in your legs and you are done!
Watch the video if you are confused about any part of this process, or comment and I will respond!
The Outcome
Most chairs have a seat height between 17′ and 19″. At approximately 16″ our ottoman is the perfect height for a tray with a cup of coffee or as a place to put your feet up. I love how happy it makes this reading corner in our game room! And even though I needed all 36″ to wrap the ottoman, because home dec fabric is 54″ wide I had enough left over for a small pillow!
The Budget
$4.00 – ReStore furniture legs
$13.48 - Fabric (50% off)
$16.97 – Wood round
$7.00 - 3″ foam rubber remnants (from my local fabric store or you could ask a local upholsterer)
$6.76 – 4 angled top plates (1.69 each)
$3.79 – Black spray paint (semi-gloss)
$0.00 – I had a staple gun with staples and a can of spray adhesive – to purchase spray adhesive it is about $7
TOTAL: $52.00
This project was Week 4: we will be adding a new video to our YES Spaces DIY page every Thursday for the next 48 weeks! And based on your input we will have directions and when needed measurements and plans here every week as well. So be sure to subscribe here and over on YouTube so you don’t miss anything! I am currently cooking up all the projects and simultaneously pulling together our MESS to YES makeover schedule for the year so if you have projects or spaces you are struggling with and would like some inspiration let me know and I will try to tackle as many as I can here this year.
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