Ottoman Makeover

I have held on to my college ottoman, planning and planning to do something with it. It was just too girly and "dorm room like" for our home. I also wanted to bring some red into the living room to go with our gray, red, and blue palette. Well, I finally took the plunge and I wanted to share it with you all. Hopefully I'll inspire you to take on a little project yourself.

It was a pretty simple process. I bought 2 yards of fabric at JoAnn Fabrics. It was on sale for 7.99/yard - not bad, not bad. I bought the staple gun off Amazon, right here). It was great for the job, and relatively inexpensive. Besides that, all  I needed was scissors. So to sum it up:

1. Fabric (2 yards or so, depending on your ottoman size)

2. Ottoman

3. Staple gun (light duty should be fine if your fabric isn't crazy thick) plus staples

4. Scissors

Step one: Cut fabric for the lid. You can get all fancy and measure it, but I just held the fabric to the lid and left a little extra on each side to fold under to be stapled. I did the stapling, folding the corners in like a gift. Do this for all four corners, making sure to pull the fabric very snug. This is a picture of my folding for the underside of the ottoman, but it's the same technique:         

Step two: You can now move on the the main part of the ottoman. My ottoman had little stump legs, so I had to remove them, as shown. My ottoman is legless now, but it's okay. He still does his job.

Step three: Finishing off the ottoman was a little tricky for me. I wasn't sure what to do because my staples were showing, like the left picture shows. I decided to just cut a little more fabric and place it over this stapled section, stapling where it can't be seen, on the inside and bottom of the ottoman. It looks like the right picture.
  

Anddd that's it! The much anticipated before and after:

It was a lot easier than I anticipated, and I have to say that using that staple gun was pretty therapeutic ;) If you have any questions, I'll try to help! I know I didn't provide a crystal clear explanation but hopefully it helps you out a little. Thanks for stopping by!

xo, Amanda