I love to put my feet up, wherever I am sitting, so we have lots of footstools in our home. Some of them have been rescued from the side of the road, or bought in a thrift store, and then reupholstered, but I also build them. A simple footstool is very simple to make and doesn’t really require many carpentry skills.
Here are the materials and tools I use:
- MDF or plywood
- handsaw
- sandpaper, 60 grit to 150 grit
- 2” firm foam
- sharpie
- furniture legs and top plates
- speed square (optional)
- pencil
- drill
- electric or manual carving knife
- Dacron, muslin, or batting
- upholstery fabric
- sewing scissors
- staple gun and ¼” or larger staples
- staple remover or flat screwdriver
- pliers
- cambric fabric
- ½” to ¾” black cut tacks
- needle nose pliers
- tack hammer
- decorative furniture tacks (optional)
- decorative upholstery trim (optional)
If it’s not already the right size, I start by cutting my MDF or plywood (I usually use a scrap from another project) to size with the handsaw. Of course, power tools could be used, but I don’t usually find them necessary for this project. My footstool projects have ranged from 10” square to 16” by 24” and are often determined by the materials I have available. For this project I am using an old piece of plywood which I cut down to 12” by 18”. Once the wood is cut, I sand all the surfaces smooth, rounding off the edges a bit.
I then lay my base over the foam, marking the size with a sharpie. I won’t cut the foam yet, but it's easier to mark it now than it would be once the top plates are attached.
I place the top plates on the base, using a speed square to make sure they are placed evenly at each corner. I locate them about a half inch from the edge, so I will have some surface available for stapling fabric later. Since I am using angled top plates, my placement needs to be exact, so the footstool won't wobble. I mark the screw holes with a pencil, and drill pilot holes. Then I screw in the top plates.
Now I will cut my foam. I have a dedicated electric knife for upholstery, but many people get decent results with a manual carving knife. Scissors could also be used, especially on thinner foam pieces, but they will often produce a jagged, uneven edge on thicker foam like I am using for this project.
I will attach the foam to the base using a wrap of batting or muslin. I never glue my foam to the base. For one thing, the batting wrap will easily hold it in place. More importantly, should my foam eventually fail, I won’t need to peel it up and sand off glue remnants to replace it. I won’t have to wait for glue to dry to continue my project. Finally, in the many furniture pieces I have reupholstered, I have rarely encountered glued-in foam.
However, wrapping the foam is a critical step. The layer of batting smooths out the foam’s edges and holds the foam in place. It protects the foam from rubbing by the face fabric, while also protecting the face fabric from rubbing and fraying through direct contact with the edges of the plywood or MDF base. I like to use leftover upholstery Dacron for this step, but if I don’t have any, I will use quilt batting, muslin, or even a cut up mattress pad. One thing I won’t do is skip this step.
To wrap the foam, I start by placing the batting on my worktable, then place the foam on top, and finally the base piece.
I pull the batting completely around each edge and staple it to the bottom of the base in the middle of each side, close to the edge. Then I flip the whole thing over to make sure everything is straight and there aren’t any wrinkles. If I am satisfied, I turn it back over and continue stapling, from the middle of each side to the corners. I try to staple as close to the edge as I can get, and, as I staple, I will keep flipping the piece over to make sure everything continues to look even and smooth. As I encounter problems, I will use a staple puller (or flat edge screwdriver) and pliers to remove errant staples. I pull the batting over the corners as smoothly and bulk-free as possible. When the batting is completely stapled, I trim it close to the staples.
I attach the upholstery fabric in a similar fashion. For this project, I am using a remnant I purchased for $5 from my local upholstery fabric store. It matches a small throw pillow I made from another $5 remnant a few years ago. My fabric piece was 25” square when I bought it, large enough for my project, with just a thin strip of fabric left over.
As I did with the batting, I lay the fabric face down on my worktable, topped with the upside-down project piece. I will pull the fabric around each edge, stapling it in the middle of each side just beyond the edge of the batting. After placing those first four staples, I will flip the project over to make sure everything looks good, that the pattern is lined up correctly and evenly, and that it isn’t pulling off-grain. Then I turn it back over and continue stapling from the middle of each side to the corner. As I staple, I will continue to flip it back and forth to make sure my fabric stays aligned and even, knowing that I’m going to be pulling out a lot of staples as I fix mistakes.
When I get to the corner, I won’t just pull it over like I did with the batting. I will create a sort of miter, by pinching the fabric together at the corner, pulling it out and away then trimming the excess to the edge of the base. Once the mitered corners are stapled, I will pull the remaining small flap of fabric over the corner and staple it down. I usually have to redo this step multiple times to get a nice and neat corner.
Once the fabric is attached, I cut a piece of cambric a bit larger than the base – large enough to cover the raw edges of the upholstery fabric and to be turned under about an inch on each side. I like to attach the cambric with cut tacks rather than staples. To be honest, I really don’t like the shiny look of staples on the finished edge and find the black tacks provide a bit neater finish against the cambric. Even better, they can usually be pulled out quit easily and used again. In fact, for this project I am using tacks removed from another reupholstered piece.
To attach the cambric, this time I will start in the corners, covering the upholstery fabric. Because my fabric is pretty heavy, I ended up using two tacks in each corner where the layers are the thickest. Folding the cambric under as I work, I hold the tacks against the base with a needle nose pliers and hit them in with a tack hammer. As I work around the edges, I may need to relocate my corners to keep everything neat, but it is pretty easy to remove and replace the nails.
Since the cambric covers the top plates (no more shiny steel to be seen!), once it’s completely and neatly attached, I will us my awl to mark a hole at each top plate for the hanger bolt on the legs to fit through. After using my scissors to enlarge each hole a bit more, I can easily screw in the legs.
I bought and stained these 11” midcentury style furniture legs years ago for another project, but felt it was time for a change. For this particular project I am done at this point. However, if you made something similar, you might want to embellish it further with some decorative upholstery nails, and/or gimp, fringe, or other trim.
All told, besides the planning and dreaming, this project took about an hour to execute. Since nearly everything I used for it was left over from another project, I only spent $5 for my new footstool.
