Furnishing an outdoor room: make your own ottoman

I just re-made one of my favorite pieces of outdoor furniture, and I took pictures so that I could write a tutorial for you--in case you'd like to make your own ottoman!

Since my front porch is covered and fairly sheltered from the elements, I like to treat it as a outdoor living room. Several years ago we bought a settee and two chairs made of outdoor "wicker" furniture (it's not wicker at all; it's a weather-proof synthetic). Ours is made by Lane Furniture, and it's very sturdy and comfortable. If you're ready to invest in high-quality porch furniture, I would certainly suggest that you check out Lane's pieces. They are of the highest quality, and I couldn't recommend them more highly. Buying the settee and chairs ate up most of my budget for furnishing this space, though, so I had to get creative with the other furnishings. I made a sturdy ottoman for almost no money. Here's how you can make one of your own.

First, obtain a very sturdy styrofoam cooler, such as an Omaha Steaks cooler. You've seen these, I'm sure--you might have one sitting in your garage! You need something heavy-duty enough to hold your weight when you sit on it.  (You could also do this with a heavy-duty crate or wooden box.)

Add something heavy to the inside of the cooler, just to make the ottoman more weighty. I used old magazines from the recycling bin.

Pad the cooler with foam. I used pieces of an old egg-carton mattress pad. You can pad the top only or the top and sides, which makes a nice cushy ottoman.

Leave the bottom un-padded.

Cut a piece of scrap wood to go on the bottom of your ottoman. Adhere the wood to the ottoman with your choice of adhesive (I used my glue gun).

Cut a piece of heavyweight decorator fabric big enough to wrap your ottoman like a gift. I used about 1 1/2 yards of 54" wide upholstery fabric. Lay the fabric wrong-side-up on the floor; place the cooler right in the middle of the fabric. If your fabric is striped or patterned like mine, make sure the cooler is sitting straight on the pattern.

Pull the fabric over the long sides of the cooler. Make the fabric nice and taut. Using a staple gun, attach the fabric to the wood underside of the cooler. Use just a few staples at this point; you'll add more when all sides are covered.  Be sure to take your time on this part to get the sides nice and smooth.

Fold and pull and re-fold and re-pull until the fabric on the two ends of the cooler is neatly arranged. I made "seam" lines in the corners (although these are not seams; they're just folds). This part is a little tricky, but remember you're just wrapping the cooler with fabric the same way you'd wrap a present with wrapping paper.  Here's a tip: You'll have a good bit of excess fabric in these end pieces; cut out some of the underneath excess with scissors so your fabric will lie flat. It won't be perfectly smooth, but that doesn't matter. It may take you several tries to get the fabric to look the way you want it on the ends.  When you've achieved a look that you like, pull the fabric good and tight, eliminating all wrinkles, then attach the ends of the fabric to the wooden underside.

Once you have all sides smooth enough, staple the fabric to the cooler's underside several times, so that it's very firmly attached. At this point you'll have a nice fabric-colored box.

See? The ends aren't perfectly smooth, but they're close enough.

Choose something to use for your ottoman's feet. I purchased feet from Home Depot for about $4.00 each and spray-painted them to go with my wicker furniture.

If you use feet such as this, use an electric drill to create a hole in each corner of the bottom of your ottoman. Then simply screw the feet into place.

Alternatively, you can use just about any kind of block that will attach securely to the bottom of the ottoman.

Turn your ottoman right-side-up to make sure it's steady on its feet.

Now sit down and put your feet up--you've created a lovely piece of porch furniture for very little money!

Since I made the ottoman, I've updated my porch, and I simply re-covered the ottoman.  Here it is now:

If you have a heavy-duty box or crate or even a cooler, you can create your own ottoman!

And later I updated once again, this time with a drop cloth and some painter's tape.  Here's the latest look:

The possibilities for customization for this project are practically endless!

**Note: I first made this cooler-cum-ottoman in 2009. It's been used heavily and left out in all seasons since then. I've changed the fabric several times, but I'm happy to tell you that body of the ottoman is just as sturdy now as it was when I first made it. So if you have access to one of these sturdy coolers, I can highly recommend that you use it in this way.**

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• Tuesday Tips and Tutorials at The Stories of A to Z
• Tutorial Tuesday at Hope Studios
• Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
• Outdoor Ideas Party at Centsational Girl