Upholstered Coffee Table...

We have been doing a ton of projects since we got back to our home.  We haven't had a TV since we moved into our house last June - with Matt working from home it seemed like too big of a distraction and just not what we wanted to spend our time doing for now.  We knew it wouldn't be forever and this year we were blessed enough to have one given to us for Christmas.  We put it in the basement near my studio and we aren't getting cable or even instant Netflix - just movies and watching online.  We hope this will keep us from becoming obsessed with TV.

It has also caused us to take a look at the downstairs space to freshen it up a bit.  I made a few pillows for the couch and a matching curtain for the little window.  Matt had a basic coffee table that we thought we'd freshen up a bit, so I upholstered it.  There are lots of ways to upholster, but I have a favorite go-to version I thought I'd share here.

Here is the table beforehand - simple, nice, but a litte boring.

I cut a piece of foam that I got a JoAnns with a coupon.  This foam stuff is not cheap, so don't freak out when you buy it.  This piece with coupon cost me about $35 for the 2" foam.

I measured out where I wanted the buttons and drew it on the foam first to get a good visual layout, then on the back of the vinyl.

I use marine vinyl for almost everything, since I have tons leftover from grad school when almost all of my work was made of vinyl.  (See art website here).  If you want crazy variations of vinyl to buy, this is my go-to online store.  Also, your local fabric store will have some.  If it's not a chain fabric store, you might find some really funky options.

At the cross sections of my grid on the vinyl, I poked tiny slits so I could find them once I was working on the finished side.

Then I laid it on the floor, lined up the foam on the vinyl and then lined up the table upside down.

This is the hard part - stapling - lots of muscle needed.  I had Matt actually stand on the edge I was stapling for extra weight, although I'm not sure it really added anything.  I generally do one long side in its entirety and then really wrench on the opposite side.  Not much of a science, more of an art...

Once it's looking pretty decent, I flip it back over and prepare to put the buttons on.  I am sure that there are a million places to buy screw on buttons, but I can never seem to find them when I need them (and I usually want to do one of these projects now, not after I order something online), so I have my own method.  I have a load of cheap washers that have the inner hole just big enough that I can fit a screw through it.  So we just took the screws and the washers and screw them into the table through the vinyl and foam.  It takes some force, but pushes it down really nicely - adding security beyond the staples and giving it a really nice upholstered button look.

Then I took the buttons I had made from some old fabric and epoxy-ed them onto the washers.  So when picking the washer size, make sure the outer diameter is something that you can hide behind the pretty button.  Also, pick a button that has a little space in the center so that the head of the screw will have some space and the washer and button will make good contact for the epoxy.

The epoxy doesn't leave a lot of room for re-doing later on or modular taking apart, but I have disabled some upholstery I had made another time and if you give them a good yank, they pull off fairly easily.

So now we have a great red upholstered coffee table to watch movies in front of...