When you need an ottoman...

I am one of those people who appreciates down time, especially in a comfy chair or sofa.  When redoing my dressing room, I found a really nice chair - at Habitat Restore! - "on sale" for only $10.00.  It was a plush, comfy, well-made chair in great condition, except for one thing - the fabric.  Nice fabric, but not matching my decor.  I purchased some beautiful chenille zig-zag patterned fabric at Hancock Fabrics (of course, on sale!) and reupholstered it.  Loved it!

But I really wanted to be able to prop my feet up.  I needed an ottoman.  Not just any ottoman, but an ottoman that looked like it belonged with this chair.  Hence my ottoman project!

Things I wanted in the ottoman were:  To match the chair's cushion and height vertically, to match the shape of the front edge of the chair so that when it was pushed next to the chair it looked like one piece, and to have a footrest or cubby hole in the side facing the chair.

Here are my materials:  Two pieces of plywood, a length of oak (for the legs), eight metal brackets, some screws, and jute.  I also had foam for the cushion, batting, and my fabric.  And about 10" of 1.5" dowel.

 This is the shape of the ottoman, drawn on the plywood.  I will cut two, using a jig saw.  One piece will form the top, the second will form the bottom.  This shows the bottom piece, which will have notches cut out for the legs.  My plan is for the legs to go from the floor and up through these notches.  The ottoman top will go on top of the legs.  So the legs are the support for the entire ottoman structure.

I used a string held on one end at a center point and with a pencil on the other end to draw the arc I wanted.  The inner curved edge (on the left) was to match the curve of the front of the chair.  I laid the chair cushion down on the plywood and traced it!

 Legs.  I cut the oak 1x2 into about 11" lengths and cut the lower 5" of each one so they tapered to a 1x1 footprint.  I used a stain to match my chair and polyurethane to make them shiny.

Ok, I could have bought legs, but for one thing they would have been more expensive, and for another, this design provided the inner support I needed.

  

The ottoman bottom (on left) with notches cut and brackets placed in each so that the bottom of the bracket was under the plywood.  When I set the legs in, I will screw them to the part of the bracket that is sticking up.

(By the way, the dowel pieces on each end provide support for the rounded ends of the ottoman.)

On the right is the top of the ottoman, with brackets where the top of each leg will be positioned.




Before I screw on the legs to finish the ottoman structure, I cut a piece of thick rubber shelf liner and glued it to the surface of the bottom piece.  This will be the floor of the footrest/hidey hole inside the ottoman.







Cutting the foam that will go on the top of the ottoman was pretty easy.  I traced one of the plywood pieces, then used an electric knife to cut it out.  The electric knife makes this SO easy.  The only thing is, you have to pay attention and make sure the knife is perfectly vertical so your sides will be straight.













After screwing the legs into the brackets, I have the basic structure complete.  Here it is with the foam piece on top.  Looking good.







To provide support around the side of the ottoman, to give the fabric something to be up against, I stretched pieces of jute between the plywood decks and stapled in place.

Here you can see the cover for the cushion has been made.  I first covered the foam with batting and then slid the cover over it.  You may be able to see that a piece of fabric is attached to the lower edge of the cushion - it will cover the sides of the ottoman.


Finishing up - stapling the fabric attached to the bottom edge of the cushion to the bottom and trimming the edges of the bottom and of the footrest/hidey hole with cording.















The completed ottoman - front view.









The ottoman fits up against the chair nicely!

 A view from the inside showing the footrest/hidden compartment!

This project hasn't taken that long, and I love the results!

Reupholster Armchair with Show Wood

One of the skills I picked up several years ago is reupholstery.  I had recently had three bad upholstery jobs done for me --  In one, the floral fabric was run sideways.  In another, the nice spring cushion was replaced by a too-thin cushion and instead of giving me the extra yard of fabric I ordered for pillows they made a skirt I did not want.  And another job was botched with white decking in a dark blue sofa, with the cushions so small you could stand by the couch and see the white decking. The cushions were so hard they didn't make a dent when you sat on them.  I would have added exclamation marks to these, but there would have been too many!

So I took an upholstery class, got the right equipment, and never looked back.  I have done more than a few projects - sofas, chairs, ottomans, and cornices among them.

This project was fairly straightforward, to reupholster an armchair that has exposed wood on the arms and lower edge ("show wood").    The project should have included refinishing the wood and fixing the bottom of the chair (as you will see!), but the client requested only the upholstery itself be done.  Just sayin', in case you look at the pictures and notice!

I don't know the history of this chair, but it must have been quite a while ago it was recovered in this thin-ish chintz fabric.  My client pulled this out of storage to update and use in her new guest room.

The first step is removing the old fabric, starting with the back.  Here is where I found the old fabric not removed by the previous upholsterer.

Next is a dressing of new batting over the existing batting, which still seemed to be in good shape.

Next I strengthened the back by stapling some burlap over the open space.

Roughly using the old pieces - the seat, inside back, outside back, and arms, I cut pieces out of the new fabric, paying special attention to the pattern.  I wanted to center the pattern on all of the pieces, even the arms.










I did the arms first, laying the new piece over the arm, stapling around, and trimming close to the staples.  Since this was thin fabric (meant more for drapes than upholstery), and was bad to unravel, I wet the stapled edges with a coating of Fray Block.  Fray Block is basically a glue that goes on wet and dries clear.

Somehow I don't have pictures in between, but here you can see all the pieces (except the back) have been stapled on.  First the small piece under the front of the arms, then the seat and seat back.  I trimmed and fray-checked all the stapled edges that are next to the show wood.

To finish the back involved several steps.  First, welting around the sides and top, with some extra batting.

Then the top of the back was stapled on close to the top welting, using a cardboard strip to give it a good edge.  This is looking up under the back piece at the top of the chair.







This is the top of the back after stapling it, but before dealing with the rest of it.

Before going any farther, I needed to put on the gimp over the exposed staples next to the show wood.  Gimp is glued on typically with hot glue, which is what I did.








I love the gimp my client picked out!

The tricky part is next - closing the sides of the back using a tack strip.  (Note: I added more batting over the burlap before doing this step.)

To get the tack strip positioned, I pinned the fabric where the outside fold needed to be, then pushed the tack strip through the fabric at the pins.  I folded it in and used a mallet to drive the tacks in.











In this step, I stapled a piece of welting along the bottom edge of the back to protect it and give it a finished look.  The final step should be to staple  the black dust cover to the bottom.  But since the springs and metal pieces stick out, I cannot do this.  I gave the client a piece of dust cover to use when she has the bottom fixed.  I really should have insisted that I needed to do this repair!

The finished chair.

Another shot, since it looked so bright in the sun!  A pretty fabric.