DIY ottoman from a coffee table

  We’re ever so slowly making progress in the living room – yay! Since I’m doing it on a shoe-string budget (as always), each piece is using up my over-flowing fabric stash or burning up brain power trying to figure out a cheaper ways to get what I want in an affordable way.

A major piece of our furniture needs was a bigger ottoman. More specifically, a longer ottoman. We loved the one we had, but with four folks propping up their feet at the end of a long day, it just wasn’t big enough – and I didn’t have $200 to build a custom one. So what did I do? Cheat my way into a $40 version.



I thought long and hard about building my own base, until I found this coffee table at Goodwill for $10 – which was cheaper than building one, score! I knew it had to be 50 inches long, and this one was 54 – it’s easy to take away length, but not to add, so I threw it in the back of the truck and took her home.

The 70’s toned wood was killing me – so I gussied it up with my favorite spray paint. One can of Krylon Dual did the trick. I LOVE how this stuff works – and also love that I can buy it at Walmart.

If I were smarter, I would have run it though my table saw to shave 2 inches off each end before painting – but sometimes my brain gets ahead of itself, so I had to wait until mine was dry, silly Gina! It’s all good, though, because after covering it, you won’t see a thing!

This is my big secret – the foam mattress pad. Typically to buy a huge old chunk of foam from the fabric store, it would have been about $100, plus you still need the batting & spray. I bought all of them at Walmart, too. The mattress pad is only $10 – that’s a big savings! I actually had the spray adhesive on hand, but you only need a little – and the quilt batting was about $12.

I sprayed a layer of adhesive to get the foam to stay down, just like normal.

The mattress pad was large enough for 3 layers, so the first one went with the wavy side down. Then I sprayed adhesive and put the second layer wavy side up, sprayed again and put wavy side down, so it was smooth on top. Somehow I didn’t have photos of the other two layers – oops! Just remember that you want the top smooth. I trimmed each layer all the way around to make it all neat.

Then cover the whole thing with 2 or 3 layers of batting. I attached it from the bottom side with an air gun stapler.

 

Although there are a million and one tutorials on how to make an ottoman from a coffee table, each of them that I saw was tufted or not tailored. I wanted it to have piping, so I make a “slip-cover” for the top, but then stapled it on the lip of the table from underneath so it was smooth and even.

I used fabric that had been laying around begging to be used, gotta love that! I’m a little smitten with the sea green & blue stripes… I think Sarah Richardson would approve, don’t you?

Here’s the breakdown:

Coffee Table - $10

Spray Paint - $5

Foam Mattress Pad - $10

Quilt Batting - $12

Fabric – on hand

Spray Adhesive – on hand

Total out of pocket: $37

See ya later for Transformation Thursday!

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