Do you have any furniture that is truly awful, but you just can’t seem to get rid of it? Well, that is my old leather ottoman. I bought it originally with a great Pottery Barn-ish knock off chair that I still use and love, but this ottoman has taken a real bruising over the years. The real kicker is all the black sharpie art on the top created by one of my lovely children. At first I was devastated with the graffiti, then it became a reminder of what is really important and ironically is one of the reasons I have never trashed it. Still, it was time to breathe new life into the darn thing, give my weary feet something to smile about and at the same time add some color to the front room drowning in brown.

I used the same approach that I used when I recovered some parson chairs. But I have two more little tricks to share, I don’t know why I haven’t thought of this first one before! First, have you ever wanted a seam for aesthetics in a place that would be easier to just drape the fabric? Well, just fold the fabric and sew a tiny, tiny fold into the fabric like this:

That way, you don’t need to cut and you keep the pattern perfectly, while still creating a seam where you need one! I know, a little crazy how I get excited about this stuff…

Second trick, when stapling a project together hem the fabric first, especially when you are close to running out, so the fabric doesn’t fray. Save the future tears and spend 20 minutes hemming before finishing. You’ll thank me!

In the end I used 1 yard of upholstery fabric and it took about 2 hours (including stapling the bottom to the ottoman) and now I have some seriously happy feet!

Happy Creating!