Reupholstered Pouffe

I reupholstered this pouffe for a production of "The Ladies Man".

In order to save money on this production, we chose to pull an old pouffe out of stock and refurbish it to work for the show.

So, I'm going to go through the steps to explain how to reupholster a pouffe like this!

What you will need:

Upholstery Fabric (do not skimp on upholstery fabric, you are going to struggle during the process and it will not be as durable) - I needed ~10 Yards for this because of the pattern matching, If you don't need to pattern match you won't need anywhere near that much)

Gimp

Tack Claw (or a flathead screwdriver)

End Nips

Screw Gun

Fabric Scissors

Upholstery Gun and Staples

Sewing Machine or Needle and Thread

Step 1: Unupholster Your Piece

With this specific piece, the first step to unupholstery was unassembling - I flipped the piece around, removed the feet and used a screw gun to unscrew each individual wedge from the "lid".

Using a tack claw and end nips, pry each staple out. While this can be done without taking too much care to be delicate, make sure you don't destroy your old fabric, because you will be using this as your template to cut new fabric pieces. With that in mind, take pictures of the order fabric comes off, and how it was folded/stapled before, because this will give you clues to how you can reassemble/reupholster the new piece.

Once your fabric is all removed, assess the state of your foam/batting. If your foam is collapsing on itself, it may be time to get new upholstery foam(which could exponentially change the cost of the upholstery project. On other projects, you may need to replace jute webbing, fill, or repair the furniture piece.) In this case, my foam was salvageable but none of the batting was, so I knew what extra materials I needed to buy.

Step 2: Upholstering the Top

When upholstering the top of this style of pouffe, it is done in sections. Understanding how a piece is put together, tells us how we need to cut the fabric.

When cutting fabric for this piece, I took one "unupholstered wedge and draped the uncut fabric over it, to find the motif in the pattern I would like to be featured. Once I found a spot in the fabric I liked, I took a scrap of butcher paper and traced out the basic outline of the wedge and cut a "keyhole" so that I could center the motif while keeping the fabric flat.The years of wear on the pouffe actually came in handy to figure out what size the keyhole should be (Eww). This gave me a good idea of where to line up my piece in order to cut my fabric.

Once I decided the absolute minimum space I needed for one "wedge", I drew a small line with a pencil, and figured out how close the next piece could be in order to center the motif. I then made sure to cut the fabric for edge wedge, with as much seam allowance as I could spare. *You can always cut excess fabric off, but if you cut too much off in the beginning there is nothing you can do about it*

When upholstering a cushion or in this case, a "wedge" I find it much easier to make a small stand for the piece, than to try and upholster it upside down, because you cant see what it will look like if it's pressed down on the table (the second picture may explain this part better)

Each piece was upholstered individually then screwed back in when I wasn't working on it, this kept it out of the shop and out of the way.

Step 3: Upholstering the Bottom

At this point, replacing the batting was essential, I unrolled a large section of batting and used spray foam adhesive to attach it to the cylinder. Anytime you use batting, you will want to trim it right up to the edge of your piece, do not let it roll over the edge, or it will stick out after you trim your fashion fabric.

Using the fabric that was unupholstered, figure out the size/length the piece needs to be in order to completely cover the cylinder, with excess on the top and bottom to pull and staple. Becasue the length of my fabric wasn't long enough to wrap around completely, I chose to pattern match the seam. I then sewed the length of fabric together to make a sleeve that can be pulled in place on the cylinder. It wants to be snug, but not too tight that it pulls your batting out of place.

Then staple along the top and bottom of the pouffe. This secures your fashion fabric and pulls it taut and in place.

Step 4: Reassemble Your Pouffe and Add Gimp

Now that the bottom part is reupholstered, reattach the legs, or in my case, attach casters so that the piece can roll. You can then screw in each "wedge" making sure to evenly space them out, I find that eyeballing that kind of thing is totally fine - you can use the pattern of the fabric to help with lining things up.

I then handmade a large button for the center of the piece, using a scrap of plywood I cut into a circle then epoxied an eye bolt into the bottom of. Using scrap batting and fabric, I upholstered the "button" and used sinew to pull it down through a hole in the center of my board.

In order to cover the casters, I sewed gimp with tassels onto the bottom edge of the pouffe. This can be done with a curved needle and heavy-duty thread or if your in a pinch, hot glue works really well, but you probably won't be able to salvage the fabric if you ever remove the gimp.