Ottoman

In 2012 our leather ottoman had finally seen enough cat action that something had to be done about it. My first thought was to reupholster it somehow.

I never think "set it out for trash collection" when it comes to furniture, unless it's a piece that has severe structural damage. The ottoman did not -- it was as sturdy as ever. So I brought it down to the workshop (garage) and got started.

***

As soon as I removed the cushion -- which required cutting -- I knew that reupholstery was not really an option:

The base of this was also upholstered, and 1) I did not want to reupholster the entire thing as it would be too much work and probably beyond my abilities, and 2) as with my other projects, one of my goals is to reduce the surfaces that cat claws can sink into.

That meant that the base needed to be wood, so I decided to just build a new base and only reuse the cushion.

This was quite an easy build, as it was essentially just a box with some legs on it.

The box was formed with glue and a couple of small nails to tack it together. I used my finish nailer (attached to an air compressor) for this, as it's the fastest, easiest way to do it. I've got a low-end compressor -- it came with two nail guns and was about $100. If I didn't have that I would have had to clamp the box together while the glue set -- which can be a challenge sometimes.

Always use newspaper or similar on your work surface when gluing, or you may end up fusing the piece to the table!

A little wood filler to close the tiny nail holes...

...and the box was finished. Here it is with the top (that the cushion will be attached to) in place:

I used poplar as usual (love this wood!) and the legs were just solid poplar blocks, cut then given a bit of a bevel edge with some sandpaper.

I was originally planning on reusing the legs from the old ottoman, but I didn't have a hex-head wrench long enough to reach into the hole in each leg, so couldn't remove them. I'll use them on a future project as I think I have a long enough wrench now.

I had my stepson create the new cushion cover using scrap vinyl that he already had -- I wasn't picky about the color:

Unfortunately I had measured the cushion myself and apparently I wasn't precise enough, or thought that bigger would be better than smaller...

...and the cover ended up being too large, so the cushion ended up being misshapen.

I attached it to a sheet of MDF (manufactured wood) with staples, then added some blocks that would hold the cushion in place:

This "box" of an ottoman needed to be openable -- we can always use more storage space, right?

Having access to the inside meant that attaching the legs was easy: lag screws and washers hold them tight -- and they can be easily removed if ever needed.

The color is a greenish-black:

I stained it green first but wasn't happy with that, so went with black over the top. The result was black with green undertones -- nice!

So the ottoman was reborn. Although I only reused a portion of the original piece, I still feel good about recycling even part of it.


You might have noticed that this new cushion is starting to show a bit of cat claw damage. Once it gets too bad I'll have another cover made -- to the right dimensions this time so the cushion won't look so wonky!

.