DIY Life

In my humble opinion, upholstered furniture looks better without the anchoring wall of fabric known as the skirt. More often than not, skirts are cut and hemmed too short anyway. Unless the legs are downright hideous, their presence adds an element which becomes a part of the overall design, rather than something attached to it.

Complete removal of a skirt can get tricky, but ReadyMade happened across a chair update project on The Brick House blog that opens up all sorts of vintage chair possibilities.

The blogger transformed this unimpressive gold 1970s chair into a retro gem by altering the skirt in order to show off those modern legs. Find out more after the break.

My coffee table has seen better days. It no longer has the glass top, which is fine, because my oldest daughter loved to watch the milk drip from her sippy cup and pool under the glass in the wicker of the tabletop, and I broke the said glass one day when yelling at said daughter and slamming said sippy cup onto glass. I must admit, the spider effect of the broken glass was pretty cool, but a pain to clean up!

If you happen to have an equally ugly coffee table, let's think about turning that dinged up thing into an upholstered bench. With some new fabric, pretty paint, and a little hard work, you can create a one of a kind bench to suit your decor. The step by step instructions and detailed pictures should make it a snap to makeover the coffee table you have tried to hide from all your neighbors and friends.

Curbly's ModHomeEcTeacher, Shelly Leer, dropped us a line to let us know about a nifty project she designed. This upholstered nightstand cost her less than $25 to purchase and overhaul, and with attention to detail, you can do it too.

Shelly was nice enough to give us a bunch of extra photos of the makeover process. I've set them up in a gallery, below, where you can watch it all come together.

Please join me after the break for a few more notes about methods and supplies, like the name of the fabric used in the tutorial and at least one place where you can purchase it.

Four or five years ago, one of my art-major college friends decided to make over her desk chair. While she'd bought it new, it was an inexpensive standard task chair, the kind you see at any number of student desks, and she'd had it for years. She put tropical fabric on the seat and gave it a grass skirt. Instant luau!

Similar in spirit is Goodwill Hunting, a thrift-store chair makeover from Curbly's ModHomeEcTeacher. The chair itself cost less than $10, and was covered with about a yard of fabric. All you have to do is disassemble any seat pads, trace a pattern for the new coverings, attach the new fabric (and a scrap fabric for areas that aren't visible), and reassemble the chair. Grass skirts are optional.

Although there are a wealth of cool prints out there, this will probably be more durable if you do it with upholstery fabric or canvas or something equally heavy (a lot of online fabric shops currently have really cute Japanese canvas prints that sell for about $16-20 per yard). The procedure requires some tool savvy and common sense, so I'm happy to see that the author of the tutorial did not skimp on safety warnings.

[Thanks, Ryan!]

Sometimes it's the little pieces -- like a perfectly coordinated ottoman/footstool/pouf thingy -- that bring a room together. Unfortunately, those little pieces can sometimes come with a hefty price tag, especially if you want a piece that matches just so. Here are 3 ways to create a custom ottoman for your living room, so you get that perfectly coordinated look without paying too much.

If You're Feeling Really Ambitious
Curbly user ModHomeEcTeacher, has a great step-by-step tutorial for making an ottoman from a wooden spool. In addition to the spool and fabric, you'll need batting, foam, cardboard, upholstery fabric, a sewing machine, sewing supplies, a staple gun, spare wood, legs, screws, an electric knife, and a little bit of confidence (unless you're already a maven at this).