Turn Side Tables Into Upholstered Benches, step by step

Here is a tale I have been dying to tell for a while, but now that we in fact got it done (this has been done in my head for over a year), we can spill the beans. Because apparently doing something in your mind does not a journal post make. Ha. So without further ado, here is how we took two 5-year-old side tables from Target (that we hadn’t used since we lived in our first house) and turned them into much needed padded ottomans at the foot of our bed (since Burger needs a little assist getting up into our extra tall bed, they are like our version of doggy steps).

First we placed the side tables in front of the bed to see if we liked them there.

Sold! The color is strong since they tie into the hand-me-down dresser that we got from John’s parents. And we are consistently suckers for an x-based anything, so we were off to the races. Of course they did not feel quite as integrated with the rug as they could, but we thought a thick charcoal fabric on the top of them (along with some pleasant cushy foam) could assist them tie in a lot better (scroll up to check out the first pic to see how much that gray cushion seems to assist).

But on with how we did it. First we used a flat cutting attachment from our Dremel Multi-Max to cut off the top of the table (freeing it from the x-based legs). Sounds crazy, right? But since we hoped to upholster the tabletops – to take them from side tables to benches – and it did not pop off with the removal of some screws (it was attached with nails and some glue), using the Dremel to get them separated was our best move. Yes, we might have been singing “Keep ‘Em Separated” during this phase.

Next I used 1″ foam from JoAnn to create cushions for the top of each ottoman (a 50% off coupon scored us sufficient to do both tables for simply $9). I cut it to the exact size of each top by tracing it with a sharpie and then simply cut along that line with a regular old scissors.

Then I used some spray adhesive that we had in my craft drawer to spray the back of each foam square (I did it outside since the residue is especially sticky if it settles onto your floor) and then brought them inside and stuck each of them to the table tops.

We only needed one yard of $15 fabric that we snagged at U-Fab to cover those babies (it is sort of a dark charcoal corduroy). So I cut squares of it that were about 4″ wider than the tabletop on all sides (to give me sufficient fabric to wrap around the foam & wood sides and staple it in place around the back).

I like to pull it all tight and staple it simply a few times (ex: 3) on each edge of the back of the table (see above). Then I flip it over to make sure it is tight sufficient (and pleasant and centered, since there are small lines in this fabric) before going crazy and adding the rest of the staples to hold everything in place, like you see below:

The corners are consistently a little tricky, but I simply folded the fabric into triangles, sort of like how you wrap the corners of a present. One little triangle overlaps another one and they form a pleasant clean edge.

Next we brought the legs down to the basement and sanded the edges to make sure there was not anything pointy going on (since we cut the top right off of them, they were a bit sharp from that step). Then we used a regular old brown magic marker to color the unstained parts that we sanded down, simply so it would all blend again.

Then we pre-drilled some quite small pilot holes at an angle that would ensure that a nail would go right through the legs and into the tabletop from underneath, securing everything for a strong result. We did two 2″ nails on each leg (8 nails total) simply to be sure it was all pleasant and secure.

Boom, done. Total spent = less than $12 per ottoman. Total time spent = around two hours (mostly while watching NY Housewives, which might have slowed me down since I was pausing every few minutes to try to understand why everyone was fighting the. whole. episode).

They certainly work for our Burger-getting-into-bed objective, and the best thing is that the colors/materials are so diverse that if we ever hoped to scooch them around the house into some other room/spot we totally could (if we ever found a especially long bench for a steal that we’d rather use at the foot of the bed someday, for example). Gotta enjoy flexible pieces. Oh and simply for lively here is what we had there before (an old leftover storage bench from our first house), which felt a lot heavier and clunkier:

Oh and as for our “construction” process, our tables are both especially light, so our little foam + fabric + nails seem to have done the trick (Burger has hopped on and off a bunch of times along with the bean, who has fully manhandled them provided some strong quality control) but if yours are heavier it likely does not hurt to use small screws instead of nails to secure things (the way the legs of our x-based tables were configured we worried that screw-heads would be a lot more obvious/ugly, so we figured if small-headed nails worked that would be a more subtle choice for us).

Oh and I sat on each of them and they did not explode into kindling or anything, haha, so they are decently strong, although I do not know that we’d in fact use them for perching (we have a chair in the corner of the room for that), so as long as they hold Burger (and piles of dirty clothes if we are being real) we are glad.

What items of furniture have you folks been tweaking with fabric or paint or foam or hardware lately? Any other side-table-to-ottoman conversions going on? Does anyone else remember that excellent Victoria Hagan collection from Target from back in 2007? That is where we got these x-based babies (I think for around $50 a pop). Her collection was totally the best. Wish she’d come back for an encore presentation. Who wants to bang on the table and slow-chant “we want Hagan” with me? Anyone?