3 Chic Furniture Hacks

How to upgrade existing furniture pieces around your home for less via 3, on-trend, chic furniture hacks.

I had been perusing home decor via blogs, HGTV marathons, and Pinterest for a long time before I ever bought my house. This helped me develop a good sense of the design aesthetic I enjoy as well as how much it might cost to attain. Being a fairly frugal person (my mom says cheap), there were some things I would just not pay more money for. Over time, I've discovered that if you have a bit of a penchant for DIY and a spare hour or two on the weekend or after work, you can make your high-priced design dreams come true for much less! When putting together my grad school apartment, I did things like make my own throw pillows. In my first home, I've taken it up a notch with a few more pieces. (I've still got throw pillow tips but I'll share those later.) This post features three easy and fun DIY projects I did around my house to attain the chic designer-inspired looks I desired but didn't want to make room in my budget for!

Structured Sofa

I purchased this sofa at The Dump Furniture Outlet in North Houston for an amazing deal. I like it because it is a neutral color, well made, and comfortable. It looks great in my living room but was missing a little something so I purchased this decorative nailhead from Jo-Ann Fabric and added the touch I was looking for. This is an easy way to upgrade a love seat, chair or ottoman as well.

What You'll Need:

• Desired piece of furniture
• Decorative nail head (I used about 130 nails for my sofa)
• Hammer
• Rubber band
• Soft cloth or piece of fabric
• Strong glue like Gorilla Glue or E6000
• Fabric marker (optional)

Instructions:

1. Wrap the fabric or soft cloth around the head of your hammer and secure with a rubber band. This will keep it from scratching or denting the nailhead. Alternatively, you can use a rubber mallet.
2. If you desire, mark the frequency for your nails along where you want them to go with a fabric marker. I'm not very disciplined with my DIY projects and a little impatient so I skipped this step and eyeballed the nail placement along seams.
3. Squeeze a bit of glue around the part of the nail that will go into the fabric. This step is essential if you aren't hammering into a wood-backed part of your fabric. Otherwise, the nails will fall out whenever somebody sits on the couch over time.
4. One by one, place your nails where you want them then secure them by tapping into place with the hammer.
5. Let dry then enjoy.

Inspiration

Faux Fur Bench

I snagged this bench the same day I bought the couch and was already fully aware that I would re-cover it. The price, size, and sturdiness of it meant I couldn't pass it up but, as you can see, the pattern of the fabric doesn't exactly scream chic or glamorous. I headed to Jo-Ann's again and found this faux fur fabric that reminds me of the sheepskin rugs and throws you see at Ikea and all over Pinterest. This transformation was super simple and I'm very pleased with the result. It's now perfect for the foot of my bed and quite similar to the $300+ versions I had salivated over at HomeGoods. You can easily do this same project on a stool or chair if that better suits your needs.

What You'll Need:

• Desired piece of furniture
• Enough fabric to cover the top and sides of piece with at least 2 inches to overlap underneath.
• Scissors
• Staple gun

Instructions:

1. Lay out fabric furry side down and turn the bench (or stool, etc.) upside down on top of it. Be sure to center it.
2. Tautly pull one side of the fabric over the side of the piece and down to the underside and secure with staples. Try to staple the fabric to a wooden part of the furniture rather than a fabric part as the staples will be more secure this way.
3. Repeat with all sides, making sure to pull the fabric taut as you work in order to avoid wrinkles.

Inspiration

Fuzzy Poufs

If you've ever gotten lost in Target like I often sometimes do, you've probably noticed they sell decorative poufs all the dang time! Every new home collection they launch has at least a couple of different styles. A pouf is a more laid back version of an ottoman and is just as versatile...sort of like if a bean bag and an ottoman had a baby. The ones pictured regularly move from my bedroom to my living room to my guest room and are great for extra seating, kicking your feet up or resting a tray on. I grabbed these quite a while back on clearance at Target and knew I would do something with them. As my decor vision started coming together for this home, I knew I'd need to change these up so I found this extremely soft fabric and covered them in it to better incorporate them into my living room decor. Now, there's a bit of sewing involved in this transformation but I'll also provide a shortcut in case that's not your favorite thing to do!

What You'll Need:

• Pouf
• Enough fabric to cover the top and sides (if you are using a Target Threshold pouf, 2 yards of fabric is perfect.)
• Scissors
• Needle and thread
• Stick pins

Instructions:

1. Lay out fabric fuzzy side down and turn pouf upside down on top of it. Be sure to center it.
2. Pull one of the shorter ends of the fabric up the side of the pouf and pin the edge in place along the bottom seam of the pouf using stick pins
3. Sew the edge of the fabric down along the bottom seam.
4. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to pull the fabric very taut so there are no wrinkles when you flip over the pouf.
5. Pull the long ends of the fabric to meet in the middle of the bottom of the pouf. If you have enough overlap, you can simply tie the opposing ends to each other very tightly. If you want more security, you can sew the long ends down as well.
6. ***If you don't want to sew at all, you can use a very strong fabric glue like this one or this one to complete steps 3-5. Just keep in mind that you may have to redo this step at some point depending on how much use the pouf gets.

Inspiration

Now, take a step back and marvel and what you did with your own two hands and turn your nose up at those overpriced fancy design pieces! I hope this was helpful and would love to know if you try any of these out or have other furniture hacks to share. Please let me know below. Thanks for reading!