I have finally finished my first furniture project!! I’m always looking for projects and in this case, I had some extra material and thought I could put it to good use. I recently swapped out the foam in my Article couch for some denser foam, and I had a scrap piece of wood leftover from shelves at the rental renovation.

The coffee table I had in my house was something I picked up on Craiglist when I first moved to Philadelphia 5 years ago. I was renting in a house with 3 other roommates and really didn’t care what it looked like. It was before I had even figured out what my style was. Recently Michael and I have been updating our living room furniture with pieces that fit in with the house and with our styles. The coffee table wasn’t anything we ever picked out together and since there really isn’t anything wrong with it, it wasn’t a priority until more recently.

Our couch is pretty small and we do some day want to upgrade to a sectional, but since our narrow row home doesn’t really allow for it, we end up putting our feet on the coffee table.  The coffee table is A) very hard and B) taller than the couch, so its not actually the most comfortable to put our feet on. Soo.. all that being said – I decided to take the scrap foam I had and a scrap piece of plywood and make my own ottoman/coffee table.

Here are the steps I used to make this:

Materials:

1	23″ x 52″ Plywood	$0.00
1	4″ Thick Foam with batting	$0.00
2	Craft Cover Button Kit with Tools, 3/4-Inch	$5.99
1	Velvet Curtains	$36.99
1	7″ Long Needles	$8.80
1	Set of 4 Legs	$62.64
	Thread or Floral Wire	$0.00
	Total	$120.41

Tools Needed:

	Pair of Scissors
	Thread
	Staple Gun with 3/8″ Staples
	Drill

1. Cut your foam to size. I used a serrated knife and it cut through the foam really easily. If your foam has batting on it, keep the batting. It will be good to soften the edges of the foam and wood when you cover it with fabric.

2. Glue your foam to the plywood and allow to dry. I used a regular fabric glue and it worked well after it dried.
3. Mark out on your board with the dimensions given on my template.

4. Drill holes through your board.
5. Cut the holes in your foam. Exaggerate the holes through the foam by poking your finger through or using a knife to cut an “x” shape. It will be tricky to thread your needles through the foam, so I tried to make the path as wide as possible.
6. Make your custom buttons. Using the instructions on the Dritz craft button kit, cover your buttons with the fabric you chose. In my case the fabric was pretty thick, so I needed to make the circles smaller than the template given in the kit. Michael helped me with this part and needed to use vice grips because it was so tough to push the pieces together. I ended up ordering a second package of these because most of the pieces in the first package were damaged or got damaged in the process. The fabric I’m using is thicker than the recommended, so we ended up trimming the circles just a little smaller than the template the kit came with. When pushing the buttons together make sure you use the pieces with the hook on the back side so you can thread it through the holes.

7. Lay your fabric over the top of your foam begin threading. I strung my floral wire trough the hook in the back of the buttons and then put both ends through the needle. Sew from the top down through the fabric and then through the foam. After it popped out through the bottom I used my staple gun to staple the fabric wire to the back side of the board. To make sure it stayed put, I stapled two more times in a zig-zag pattern to keep tension on the wire. You may need to push down from the top to really secure it and get the nice tufted look. Continue through all the holes. I started in the middle and worked my way out.

8. After all the buttons are finished, time to finish up the sides. The corners are tricky, so you really have to play with them before pinning own exactly how you want them. You will have to trim out some of the extra fabric so it falls nice and flat. I wrapped fabric from the long edge over to the short edge and put a couple staples in to secure it, then trimmed my excess. Be careful how much you trim here because you don’t want to expose any cut edges.
9. Trim excess fabric along the edge.
10. Fasten your legs to the bottom. I ordered these custom legs from Etsy. It comes as a set of four each at 10″ height with a slight angle.
11. Flip back over and enjoy!

This project was super easy and affordable. Michael and I put our feet on this ALL THE TIME now when were Netflix and chilling, playing video games, snacking, whatever. It’s amplified the level of cozy in our living room ten fold.

If you find this helpful please leave me a comment and let me know!

SHOP