It doesn't look anything like that now!
Awhile back, we had ripped out the cushion and spray painted the legs, then went on a long fabric hunt. We found the the fabric and just kind of ... stopped. Life happened, and I also needed to figure out the best way to reupholster the foam and attach it to the ottoman. Most tutorials we found simply wrapped the fabric around the cushion and the frame, but that wasn't going to fly with ours.
So, I finally got around to buying some board to use as a cushion backing, and we borrowed Mike's dad's staple gun. One evening, Mike and I set to work. I cut the fabric (and we learned I definitely cannot eyeball a straight cut), and we did a test fit around the foam and board. But then we had to pause. Once the fabric was stapled in place, how were we going to bolt the cushion to the frame?
Mike figured it out.
He drilled holes through the wood into the corners of the frame.
Then we lifted the board off, kept the bolts in, and could then upholster around them.
By the way, there is something very power-tripping about using the staple gun + compressor. In our foyer, the loud pop bounced off the tile floor and our laughter got a little manic. Mostly because we were rather nervous and imagining nails shooting into feet and thighs. But it didn't happen. We were careful, promise!
Then we got to the corners and had to pause, trawl the web for good pictures/videos, and then concluded there's a big conspiracy out there with DIY reupholsters. So many pictured tutorials seemed to skip the shot we needed, and hands were in the way or the camera zoomed out on the videos. Or it could simply be that it's hard to explain, because I still can't tell you exactly how we managed it. Only that we did.
The best tip we did pick up was to go ahead and staple nearly to the corners until you've got ears.
Sometimes we would end up trimming the ear down a bit for easier folding. The best way to explain the fold was that it's like wrapping a present, except you're not trying to make that triangular shape on end. Yeah, I fail at instructions. It was a total "mess with it until it looks good, then staple, staple, staple!"
Once we were done, all we had to was flip it over and slip the bolts into their slots.
But we weren't done yet. To cover up the embedded staples I couldn't rip out when we removed the original, icky fabric, we decided to find some nice, white rope and glue it all around the rim. You would think this would be the easy part, but it turned into another frustrating tour of the city's fabric stores. While I could find plenty of ropes and cords in gold, purple, pink, blue, and I swear 10 shades of beige at one store, it was nearly impossible to find a nice, true white in our diameter.
Then, low and behold, I found a spool at Walmart. It was only a yard, but I bought it, figuring if I did need more, maybe another Walmart would have more (there was only one left at this store). Ha. HA. Not the case. And a yard definitely wasn't going to cut it. But it looked like 2 would do it, so off I went to what felt like every Walmart in 20 miles. And they were all out.
But I remembered seeing a skinnier version that you could buy by the yard, not in a set spool, so I bought 4 yards, figuring I could wrap the cord twice. Got it and came home dreaming of the success awaiting me.
Yeah. No. I was a foot short. I cannot eyeball worth a damn. It took me a few days to get back to Walmart to buy another yard, and in that time, I guess every single bride had bought up every inch of decorative white rope, because it was gone. Now I was mad. After another tour of craft stores, I was left with only angry astonishment that you can have 10 shades of beige and the only white available looked like shoe strings. Oh, and you can get pink rope threaded with gold sparkly stuff. No thanks.
Mike urged me to check out Lowe's, so I finally did. For $7, I got 25 feet (you know, just in case) of white rope that had a slight yellow undertone and wasn't quite as thick as I wanted, but at that point I didn't bloody care anymore. It's not a perfect match to the white paint, but whatever, close enough.
Then life got busy and the project sat until this weekend. With some Supernatural playing on the computer, I set to work gluing on the rope. Glue a section at a time, and then use a heavy book to keep everything in place while the glue sets. I recommend the Harry Potter series, or any Norton anthologies you might have laying around from your college days. Both sets work great for smoothing wrinkles out of rugs, too.
It worked great! It's an easy project to do in between other things. We have plenty of fabric and rope left to do matching pillows, which will probably be a winter project.
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| Yeah, we need to tuck our cords back. Don't judge. |
