The Ottoman: A Tutorial

Here's to making a large ottoman for $80 instead of buying one for $200! 

Here's also to working up to a place where I write a blog every week...

The Case Study:

So, here's this table my mother is needing to get rid of, and I'm scowling at it because I know it's too old school for my taste. My husband (seen below) is thrilled because, in reality, we've just gotten married and don't have any money left to buy a coffee table.

Seven months into it and this table has been a great blessing to us (and only a minor eyesore to me), when I see on Pinterest a DIY ottoman, and I knew it was meant to be. I researched different styles and made the executive decision. (After approving it with Ian of course).
The original table is also seen below.

Well, how did you get there?!

Firstly, let me tell you, you've got to be ready to roll with the punches. Taking the original apart wasn't hard, but it involved some not-going-back wood-breaking techniques. I also discovered the top of the table was far too heavy for those little legs to support on their own. Instead, I used the hollowed out bottom of the table for the top of my ottoman. This meant I needed to buy plywood to make sure the top was heavy enough to be sat on without falling through.

First things First:

Supply List: 
* Table Top
* Plywood (if needed for weight)
* 4 legs
* 2 inch Upholstery Foam (it's not that cheap, but if you get it on sale...)
* Batting (the white stuff - also known as quilt batting)
* Fabric
* Decorative Pins (if you want to tuft your ottoman)
* Double-ended Screws (for the legs)
* Wood Glue
* Spray Adhesive
* Bread Knife
* Staple Gun
* Hammer (to remove stables or for tufting)
* The Ability to Measure

The doing: 

1. Wood Glue the Plywood to the Table Top

You've got to "clamp" it for at least 30 minutes, so I just piled up a hoard of stools and books to keep on the pressure.

2. Cut the Foam to "Table Size" with the bread knife. 

You want the foam to extend a couple cm beyond the wood on all sides because the foam will be pulled down as you continue. This will keep things looking even.

I thought sawing would work, but it was a disaster. A smooth pull from start to finish makes the best, precise line (at least with my knife!).




3. Use Spray Adhesive to Secure the Foam to Wood. 

I did buy off-brand, so maybe that's why, but the spray stuck to my skin. It was super weird. It went away after a few minutes, but there's a warning.

Side note: some tutorials also add foam to the sides of the table. You may look that up if you're interested in a softer ottoman.

(#4 is an optional step. If you don't want to tuft your ottoman, continue to #5)

4.  Create Tufting Framework

So, I made this part up. In all the tutorials I found there was no cutting of the foam. In order to tuft, you'd use a large needle to pull buttons through drilled holes in the wood. There's no way I had patience for that one... When I started this project I had not intended to tuft.
Inspired by a chair I had re-upholstered not long ago, I thought I could mimic the already tuft-formed foam I found when I pulled off the old fabric of the chair.

Through a process of mental figures and pen marks I chose how many of my decorative pins I wanted where (the pins were originally meant for decorating the sides of the table).
With the bread knife, I cut from one end of the table to the other one inch thick lines in a grid. (It was a little less than an inch deep, but I didn't measure.)

To remove the strips of the grid, I used scissors (which is why there are odd-looking hill marks).

I also used scissors to cut into each of the places I would add the decorative pins for my tufts. My technique got me pretty close to the wood - which I liked.

5. Use Spray Adhesive to Secure the Lining to the Foam

This is important if you don't want your lining to bunch up down the road.

You don't have to make little ditches if you're tufting. I'm just the type who likes to do that kind of thing for fun.





6. Staple Lining to Bottom of Table

Be careful not to do what I did in this picture. Those bunches of fabric got in my way later. It's not detrimental, but it is annoying.

7. Use Spray Adhesive to Secure Fabric to Liner.

(I didn't do this step because I was tufting. I guess you could regardless, but I knew between my pins and stapling the fabric would be secured.)



8. Align Fabric and Hammer Pins into Place

This is the challenging part. It didn't take me very long, but it took a lot of concentration. I went faster once I got the hang of it.

I started by gently lining the fabric into the grid and hammering one pin into the wood to get me going. (Hammering the pins is tricky because if you don't do it in one solid motion you risk bending the pin - which ruins it. I ruined four pins.)

From here I got more precise about folding and aligning the fabric and making my one-hit hammer strikes. It's a risky thing every time, but I only ended up pulling one pin out in order to fix it. I was okay with it not being "perfect.''

9. Staple Fabric to bottom of table. 

Remember to keep the fabric pulled tight. The cloth will loosen a bit naturally and you don't want it looking baggy around the sides of the table.

10. Drill Holes for Double-Sided Screws

These might already exist for you. If so, just attach your legs and you're great! Flip the baby over, and you've got an ottoman!

If not, here's the way I did it. I drilled holes in the base of the table and the middle of each leg. I got the screw in by putting half of it into my drill and screwing it into the base of the table until it stopped. Then I screwed the legs on
accordingly.

You're done! You're wonderful! You've got mad skills! 

                              ... Except my skills were slightly more docile.

Fixing it: 

Common sense should have told me attaching legs to the thin corners of the hollowed table top was a bad idea. In a week's time they were getting shaky. In two weeks they were so bad no one was allowed to touch the ottoman for fear it would collapse.

So, I went to Home Depot, had four blocks of wood cut to the appropriate measure, and got things taken care of! Our cat (Emmy) helped a lot...
No only did I use wood glue for security, I nailed the blocks in! Now it's so sturdy I beam every time I sit on it - which isn't much because we use it as a coffee table anyway - but, hey - we'll be ready for that moment when a party becomes too big for all our chairs...

I've got to say, I'm awfully glad now that Ian made me take that old coffee table off my Mother's hands...