Giving new life to an old ottoman!
Repurposing old furniture is one of my favorite ways to give new life to items that would otherwise be thrown away. This upcycled ottoman is a perfect example! My parents had an old, basic ottoman that they were about to toss, but when I took a closer look, I saw so much potential. I have been loving everything ruffled lately, so I decided to transform this ottoman with a brand-new ruffled slipcover. Here’s how I did it!
The ottoman itself was simple—nothing fancy, but it had solid structure and was in decent condition, I feel like you can find this style everywhere in secondhand stores. And instead of buying new fabric, I decided to repurpose a tablecloth that had seen better days. It had a few stains, but nothing I couldn’t work around. The texture was perfect for this project, and I was excited to see how I could turn it into a gorgeous ruffled slipcover.
Materials & Supplies
- An old ottoman
- An old tablecloth (or any fabric you’d like to repurpose)
- Fiskars Rotary Cutter
- Fiskars Cutting Mat
- Fiskars Metal Ruler
- Fiskars Fabric Scissors
- Thread and sewing machine (or hand-sewing materials)
How to make an ottoman slipcover
- First I ironed the fabric.
- Then, I laid the fabric over the top of the ottomon and cut the fabric off about mid way above the base.
- Next I pinned down the four edges to create seams, essentially creating a fitted sheet for the top half of the ottoman.
- I sewed down those seams using my sewing machine.
- To make the ruffles, I cut strips of fabric (the rotary cutter made this so easy!), then sewed them together to create one big long strip.
- Next I sewed a hem along one side and a basting or gathering stitch along the other side. I then gathered the fabric by hand. This took and while but worked so well!
- Once it was gathered, I pinned the edge of the top of the slipcover to the gather (on the wrong side) and then sewed them together using my machine.
Voila!
Once finished I slipped it over the top of the ottoman. Once the cover was on, I made sure the ruffles were evenly spaced and adjusted the fabric to create the perfect amount of volume. The result was a soft, chic, and completely transformed ottoman with a beautiful ruffled design.
