Stained Red Velvet Ottoman Makeover
- By Joan
- June 19, 2019
- 2 Comments
I helped move my nephew into a new home a few weeks ago and look at this little treasure the previous homeowner had left behind, a red velvet ottoman. Besides having a few stains, it wasn’t quite his style. I’m not really sure exactly what his style is but when my sister sent the ottoman my way she mentioned he kind of liked white and gray. Who doesn’t?
I’m on it. She knows that I’m always on the lookout for my next project.
Before you tear apart your ottoman just willy nilly take pictures as you go. Anything that’s a little strange…oh that’s how they put that on…that’s what you want to take a picture of.
In this case, where the cording went around the leg, all excess fabric had been trimmed off and it wasn’t stapled on, just pulled tight, to hold the cording in place.
Now you can take apart the ottoman willy nilly. If you don’t have a staple remover, a flat head screwdriver does just as well for prying the staples up. Use a needle nosed pliers to pull the staples out the rest of the way.
Use the pieces you just removed as patterns for the new ottoman cover.
Alert readers may recognize this gray fabric as the same fabric I covered a bench in 3 years ago. I was surprised to find it still in stock at Hobby Lobby.
The old ottoman was extremely flat, it needed a little poof. All of the original foam padding was originally covered with a nice layer of quilt batting which I removed. There was nothing really wrong with the old foam so I’m just adding a little more foam to the center. If I had a larger piece of foam I would have used it…use what you have.
Around my tiny little foam piece I piled a bunch of fiber fill to soften the foam edges.
I replaced the batting, covering up my new poofy center. If you see (or feel) any lumps or hard edges of the foam add more of the fiber fill. Tack the batting in place with a few staples.
I didn’t buy any new cording for my project but I did know where I could get a few yards and it would be the perfect length.
Cut 2 inch strips of fabric to go around the cording. I have heard that when making cording you should cut the fabric on a 45 degree angle. I didn’t buy enough fabric to cut on an angle so I’m just using straight cuts.
If you need more than one strip of fabric to cover the cording, sew the strips together before sewing around the cord. If your fabric was cut on an angle, this would be an angular seam and would reduce the bulk of the seam.
Fold the fabric in half around the cording and using a zipper foot, sew as close as possible to the cord. Leave an extra inch of fabric on both ends for overlap.
Pin the cording to the top of the ottoman, clipping the corners so that the piece lays flat.
Once again use the zipper foot to sew as close to the cording as possible following your pin line.
Almost forgot to paint the legs before attaching the new cover. So much easier to do now so I don’t have to worry about getting paint on the fabric. This is white chalk paint. When dry, sand the edges to highlight some of the leg detail if desired.
Time to attach the side pieces. If you need to use more than one strip of fabric, with right sides together sew the pieces together before attaching to the top.
Once again with your zipper foot, with right sides together, start sewing in the middle of one of the ends. Leave about 1/2″ from the end free of stitching to be able to fold back and make a seam when you come back around with the other end of the side piece.
Try the new top on for size. Don’t worry, it’s gets tighter than this, nothing is stapled in place yet.
Start stapling. Use a heavy duty stapler, preferable a Pneumatic Staple Gun
Use a solid line of staples in the corners.
Trim away the extra fabric.
With the bottom cording, once again start in the middle of one of the sides and staple in place as you pull the cording around the ottoman. Trim off the excess fabric for the cording that surrounds the legs ( do not cut into the seam) and pull tight around the corner, stapling again once the corner has been cleared.
When I got the ottoman it didn’t have a dust cover in place. I know it had one at some point in it’s past because I could see some of the remnants of the old fabric tucked into the corners.
The dust cover cleans up some of the rough edges and gives the entire piece a finished look.
I may be spending too much time with my kid’s dogs, but I have a weird desire to pet this guys tummy. In my defense, 2 of my kids have black and white dogs.
Hope I’ve inspired you to not throw out Grandma’s ottoman just yet. Until next time.
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Love it!
I bet you hated to give this cutie up! Great job and nice directions.