Recover A Cube Seat Using Thrifted Denim/NO SEWING

My daughter and I enjoy sewing and have been using this cube as our seat over the last few years. It’s lightweight, has a padded seat and fits into the opening under the sewing machine nicely. The problem is the fabric covering it…

The pattern isn’t something I would ever use in my home. It has also gotten quite a bit of damage on the corners from one of our feline friends. This cube isn’t a storage container either. It was bought for my daughters bedroom as an extra little seat that just happens to fit perfectly under the sewing machine table.

I decided to cover it with a durable fabric and when denim came to mind I decided to check out the thrift stores near our home. I wasn’t able to find material but I was able to find affordable jeans.

I scored more denim that I could have hoped for. This pair, along with a large rack of others, were $4.50 a piece. Amazing price if you have ever shopped for fabric.  Huge score!

I then searched Pinterest for ideas and proceeded from there. I knew I wanted to keep it simple and decided to use a staple gun for the majority of the project. I also pulled out my hot glue gun, scissors, roll cutter and cutting mat.

I started by cutting the legs off.

I then cut the inseams to open the pant legs up leaving the outer seams in tact. That gave me two big pieces to start with. 

I cut a big square out from one of the legs, with the seam running down the middle, and used it for the top piece. This cube has a bit of cushion on there already so there was no need to add any more.  I secured the fabric with my Ryobi Cordless Staple Gun.

When I didn’t have a seam to follow I used my roll cutter and large ruler to get straighter edges.

When covering the sides I pulled the fabric around the bottom edge and secured It underneath so no staples could be seen. There previously had been little plastic rounds secured with tiny nails on all four corners which were the feet. Only three were left and were easily popped off with a screwdriver. I wanted to give this seat a bit more height and decided to put more substantial feet on after the reupholstering portion of this project had been completed. That will be a later blog post.

The open bottom provides a good look at how this cube is actually constructed. The only portions of real wood are found at the cube corners. The rest is a combination of particle board and sheets of cardboard which make up the sides. Because of this all the staples needed to be place around the perimeter of the cube walls.

After the cube was completely covered by the denim I separated the seams from all the leftover pieces to use as decoration and cover any staples and rough edges that were showing. I found it easiest to use a combination of scissors and my roll cutter.

• This idea of using the seams came from Restyled-Junk.com on Pinterest.

TIP: Have a roller cutter on hand when working with these thicker fabrics. It makes straight edges much easier, the cutting goes faster and it makes it a lot easier on your hands.

Here it is all covered and the seams attached. I didn’t want any staples to show once all the fabric was attached so the the seams were applied with hot glue.

I also used these jean buttons I found at Michaels. They come with a little stem on the back which cannot be removed since the buttons are solid pieces of metal.

To make them lay more flush I attached them in places where I pieced the seams together. I split the meeting points and hot glued the stem portion in between them.

I also thought about maybe placing some Boho ribbon or pompom trim just under the seat but thankfully my daughter reminded me that our cats would have a field day with what they perceived as a new toy and I quickly decided against it. (But I still love the idea of giving this seat some Boho charm:)

This final picture isn’t the finished product, I’m still on the hunt for feet! I’ve hit the big box hardware stores near me and haven’t found anything. Once I have found some I will blog about where I found them, if I have to change the look of them and how they get attached.

There will be a video of this project going up on my You Tube Channel very soon. If you have any questions please reach out to me.

Thank you for stopping by:)

Roni♥