In my recent Living Room Make-over post, I showed you my “new” ottoman after I made a simple loose cover for it. I’ve decided that life is just too short for ugly, worn-out furniture but of course re-upholstering is quite the expensive endeavor. 
My deep-buttoned leather ottoman has a lovely shape and a great size – perfect for extra seating – but the leather was starting to look horrible.
This cover took me about 4 hours to make and the results are amazing – it looks like it’s brand spanking new! At first I was going to try my hand at full re-upholstery, but after I unscrewed the legs I realized that I am completely mad: this is a white fabric in the most-used room in the house and I have two little boys who are going to want to climb on it! So I promptly screwed the legs back on and proceeded to figure out how to make a loose cover. 
To be honest, I haven’t done this before, but I always trust in my practical mind when it comes to things like this. I first carefully measured the top and 4 sides, keeping in mind that it is bulging slightly at the sides so I need to allow an extra 20mm or so on the width and height.
Then I cut the fabric according to the measurements, making sure that the pattern is positioned evenly (with one flower in the middle) of the ottoman.
Placing the fabric back on the piece of furniture I folded the excess fabric over on the line of the existing seam and cut my fabric 20mm away from that line.
I started pinning the sides on (fabric inside out) and then proceeded to sew it together. It’s easier keeping it on the ottoman when pinning to get a good fit!
After pinning, I used a clear acrylic straight edge to draw a pencil line along the pins for sewing.
Once all the seams are sewn, you can still tweak it if it doesn’t fit properly. Only after being absolutely happy with the fit, I cut away any excess fabric along the seams.
I didn’t trim any fabric along the bottom so that I could fold it over underneath. Next, I put on the cover (fabric right side out) and turned the ottoman over for working underneath.
I cut away any excess fabric around the legs and then pinched the corners so that it creates a nice snug fit around the base.
A simple roll-seam along the entire hem works very well, at the same securing the pinched corners – it will be underneath so it doesn’t have to be perfect!
I used the off-cuts to put together enough fabric so that I could pull the cover tight underneath and fix with Velcro. Pin it in place, cut Velcro strips and sew them on.
Since I really like the buttoned effect of my ottoman, I wanted to keep it even with a loose cover. I made little fabric covered buttons, making sure that they more-or-less match the print where they will be placed (plain on plain and print on print). I marked their positions with a black marker and then sewed them into place on top of the fabric with industrial thread.
I used pants-hooks to keep them in place, with the hook-part sewn into the ottoman using a curved needle and the bar to the underside of the fabric underneath the button. I have to say that it felt a little bit like performing surgery, curved needle and all! I used pliers to close the hooks tightly so that the buttons won’t pop out accidentally.
Make sure that everything is hooked into place before you secure the cover underneath with the Velcro. 
I absolutely love it and considering I paid R80 (USD8) for the 2 meters of fabric, it was the most cost-effective face-lift I could’ve dreamed of!
