How to Reupholster a Footstool

First, using a screwdriver or a staple remover, remove the existing cover from the footstall.

Take your time, pushing the remover under the staplers on-by-one and shimmy them out of the wood. This can be tricky and you want to keep the cover intact as much as you possibly can so be careful.

Once all the staples are removed, take the cover off, leaving the liner piece on the footstall. If the liner piece gets damaged don't worry too much, you can cut another using wadding.

Using a seam ripper, gently pick apart the seams on your cushion until you have lots of flat pieces – we're going to use this as a template to create the new cover

Press your pieces flat and then place your pieces on your template paper – pin this in place if you need to.

Remember to make a note of the seam allowance used before you press this flat as you'll need this for when you reconstruct the pieces. You can do this by holding a measuring tape from the edge up to the current crease.

Draw around your templates, being as accurate as you can

Using a sharp pair of scissors, cut around your templates and label them e.g., footstool 'top', footstool 'side panel'

Give your fabric a nice steamy press to remove any fold marks or creases

Turn the steam off on your iron and fuse interfacing to your fat quarters/fabric to add some durability to the final project

Lay your pattern pieces on the fabric and cut carefully around them using tailoring shears

Now we're going to begin reconstructing the cover, start by pinning the side pieces together, remembering to mark your seam allowance

Using a sewing machine, sew the pieces together

Open the seams and press them open

Place the side pieces back on the footstool and begin pinning the top together paying special attention to the corners – take your time getting this right so it sits flat on your final piece

Remove the cover and sew everything together on your sewing machine

Snip up to the seams on the corners leaving 1cm in between each snip – this will help the curve to sit flat

press open the seam allowances

Turn the cover the right way out and place it back onto your footstool. If it's gotten creased during your construction, run an iron on low heat across the fabric to smooth it out

Turn the cover upside down and begin pulling the cover taught stapling in the centre on each side to hold everything in place

Turn the cover over to check everything looks straight then flip it back over and begin evenly distributing staples around all of the edges of the cushion

At the corners, fold the edges over one another and neatly staple them in place – use more than one staple to keep this tidy if you need too