My first (and last!) attempt at reupholstering

I've read so many blogs and seen so many tutorials on reupholstering that I thought I would give it a shot. I mean, HOW hard could it actually be??

..........well, I was about to find out!

I started with (what I thought!) an easy shape, a couple of ottomans I picked up from Target.  They were a steal on clearance at only $5.00 a piece! At the time, I was going through a "pink phase" and had been trying to incorporate pink into all of our house decor. That was a short lived phase!  So these were the perfect candidates to get a new look. 

The fabric I chose was one I saw on the All Things Thrifty blog. She redid this double wing back chair and it is A-MAZING! You definitely need to check out all her awesome projects! Check out her before and after here


I contemplated (for about 2 seconds) taking off the existing fabric but I quickly saw that it would be a lot more work than I was willing to do, so I decided to just cover up the fabric. I'm glad I did because this project was time consuming enough as is!

I then cut pieces of fabric (side note: measure your fabric at least TWICE to make sure it's right...and then measure it two more times after that! I found that out the hard way...) and stapled them around the ottoman on the inside and underneath.  After stapling, I hammered in all the staples to make sure there weren't any sharp edges sticking out because my boys like to play in them (why??).  The original fabric underneath had been sewn together in pieces, but I'm lazy, and instead just wrapped the entire ottoman with one piece of fabric and folded in the raw edges.  I figured that since they rest up against the wall no one would see the folded in parts...yeah, yeah I know, totally unacceptable but I just don't have the patience to do things right! haha!  Plus, I wound up redoing the covers of the ottoman at least twice each, so I think these got way more work than they deserved!

All in all, I'm really happy with how they came out.  I just love this pattern and it really adds such a nice touch in our living area!  But I'm pretty sure I don't ever, ever want to reupholster anything (especially reupholster the RIGHT way) again!