How to Make an Upholstered Ottoman From an Old Side Table

Sometime in the 60's or early 70's, someone put out a vast number of round two-tier early American style side tables. Lately, they've been gathering dust in attics and basements everywhere. They don't have to clutter up your storage space if you happen to have a few, though. The parts can be used to make some nice upcycled furniture pieces. I wanted an upholstered ottoman to use as a small coffee table, but you could also make a child's blackboard table or use one of the tiers as the top of a massive cake stand. Look at your unwanted furniture as a supply of wooden pieces for other projects and just start brainstorming.

*Before you take anything with a bit of age apart, check with a specialist to be sure you're not ruining a valuable piece of furniture.

Your first step is to take the top layer off the side table.If you don't have a two tier table, you're ahead of the game and can skip this step. Look underneath it to see if the layers are fastened together with screws. If so, remove those screws. My layers weren't screwed together, so I moved on to the next part of the task. Get a rubber mallet (If you don't have one, wrap a hammer in a washcloth or dish towel.) and tap on all the spokes and boards connecting the two tiers. Continue tapping until the spokes separate from the tiers and you can lift the top tier and all the spokes off. I had to give it some pretty good taps and then wriggle the spokes around a bit before they came completely unglued. That's why I recommended wrapping a hammer in a washcloth. You might damage the wood if you are whacking away at your furniture with a hammer.

Now, you'll have a one tier table and, if your table is like mine, a second round piece identical in size. You'll want to lightly sand the edges and legs of the table if you aren't satisfied with the finish it already has on it. Wipe it down with a slightly damp rag to remove any sanding dust and let it dry thoroughly. Then, paint or stain it. Don't worry about doing the whole top. It will not be visible. You should do the edges, though, as they might show through if you use my upholstery method.

I used the left over tier as my upholstered top base. It allowed me to sandwich all the ratty ends of the upholstery between the tier sandwich and gave me a nice base to staple the fabric to. If you don't have that extra tier, you'll just staple the fabric under the table and tack a piece of muslin over top to hide all the raw edges.

Measure the size of your table and cut a piece of upholstery foam to fit. If the edges of your circle don't quite get filled in, you can hot glue the scraps from the corners of the squares to the foam until you have a perfect circle. cut a piece of upholstery batting to cover the top of the foam. Cut a piece of nice quality upholstery fabric so it is big enough to cover the entire top of the tier, go around the sides and come underneath the tier to be stapled into place.

Place the fabric on top of the batting, foam and extra tier like the fabric is the top slice of bread going on a sandwich, the tier is the bottom slice and the batting and foam are the filling. Carefully flip the whole thing over and begin stapling down the fabric as tightly and smoothly as possible. You don't want any wrinkles in the fabric on top of the ottoman. Trim any excess fabric away so the underside of the tier looks as tidy as possible and flip it over. You have the covered part of your ottoman all finished!

Now, the final step. Stack the upholstered tier on top of the painted table, turn them over and screw the two layers together from the bottom. I used four screws and mine seems quite sturdy. That's all there is to the project. From outdated furniture reject to cozy hassock in just a few hours. If you make one, I'd love to see it!