Upholstered Coffee Table – Changing it up in our Living Room!

Upholstered coffee table in our living room. When I picked up this coffee table at an estate sale years ago I knew I wanted to upholster the top and make it more like a bench / way softer foot rest. It also doubled at making our couch big enough to practically create a bed too! At the time I picked a fun paisley table cloth on Amazon and we’ve loved it for years. However, well, spills happen and though the old fabric I chose held up for a long time it was time to be replaced.

I loved the old fabric and I’ll be the first to admit I almost just replaced it with the same but change is good (sometimes lol) and I settled on this fun large pattern instead.

It has a lot of gray in it and I think the yellow flowers are just so cheery.

Another thing this upholstered coffee table needed was a desperate tightening of its screws… Over the years and thousands of feet later, it was definitely feeling rickety.

I grabbed my drill and did that first and it was as sturdy as the day I brought it home!

Then it was time to rip off the old fabric and take out the old tufts.

I learned several things the hard way when I first worked on this upholstered coffee table. Initially I did not use strong enough thread for the tufts so you can imagine the nightmare I had, days after completion, of the tufts popping out and then my trying to get them back in again!

I also didn’t have long enough needles for what I was attempting before.

NOT ANYMORE.

I bought a whole set of giant upholstery needles off of Amazon.

And I use butcher’s twine for the “thread” on the tuffs. This is where Lodi saved me a ton of time because I could totally BUY a real thread that would work very well here but instead I just use the twine I keep in the kitchen even though it is a NIGHTMARE to get through a hole in a button or the eye of a needle.

He sat there and diligently threaded all eight buttons for me while I was pulling the tufts, love that man.

Last time I worked on this upholstered coffee table (and the many fixing of the tufts after) was literally hours of work.

With my experience now, and Lodi’s help, I took off the new fabric and installed the new (tufts and everything) in only a couple of hours.

Tufts need to go in first, one at time, back and forth from one side to the other always being conscious of giving PLENTY of extra fabric.

Once the tufts are in and the upholstered coffee table is flipped over I first go between each tuft tightening up the fabric as much as possible and putting in a couple of staples on either side.

Then I go between those staples to each tuft. Then I finish each side. Then I do each end and then I finish with the corners.

I also use staples as if I have an infinity amount of staples.

And I think its quite cheery and lovely!

I was on the fence a bit of just how dang WHITE it is as it kind of felt like it made the rest of the room feel dingy. (The rug and pillows are ivory.)

But I got used to it and I think it works just fine.

I put in a “new” lamp here earlier and am thinking its time to change up the living room a bit so I’m excited for an all new reveal post for it here on the blog!