Ottoman Empire

I’ve officially completed my first re-upholstery project and I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am to begin my next one! I decided to start by re-upholstering a simple rectangular storage ottoman to get the techniques down before tackling a much larger project, our ugly orange chair.

We found a fabric we both loved at an expensive custom sofa shop downtown and decided to see if we could find it in store. We found it at the Fabricana Interior Delights store for over $40 per metre. Considering we needed about two yards for the ottoman and about eight yards for the chair… Whoa.

(Sorry for the weird pink glow on the photo. The background is cream.)

So, I began my quest of finding Kirby Lapis for a more reasonable price. Enter www.housefabric.com — my heroes! I paid just $17.95 per yard! Even with US pricing, shipping, and having to pick it up in Sumas, the cost was much closer to our budget.

Our storage ottoman was originally covered with a camel brown microsuede and a black lining. It has a very basic shape and I thought it would be a great way to learn the techniques of upholstery needed to take on large-scale projects.

The lackluster before:

Once I had the fabric, I picked up some other necessary supplies: Singer Upholstery Basics Plus: Complete Step-by-step Photo Guide by Steve Cone, an Arrow Professional Electric Staple Gun from Home Depot with both 1/2″ and 1/4″ staples, a spool of acrylic twine, a large upholstery needle, a few yards of quilting batting, some cover buttons and about two yards of cream cotton denim for the lining.

I won’t bore you with the finicky details. Basically, I removed the feet and cut the old fabric off the ottoman carefully, making notes on each piece where necessary. I removed all the old staples and lining materials until all I was left with was the bare wood. I then placed new batting right over the old batting and covered the seat piece with the new fabric, securing as per the book’s instructions.

I did a little sewing to get the outside of the base right, and some of the lining pieces. I created the covered buttons and secured those with the twine. Once I’d completed all the stapling and securing, I reassembled the ottoman and replaced the old feet.

We are both so happy with how this turned out. The colours now blend nicely with our ocean-tone rug and sage couch. We hope to add a blue-grey couch to the room eventually and this will all coordinate together nicely.

Without further ado… The glorious after!