How to Upcycle a Step Stool for Kids
Easy DIY Furniture Makeover:Â How to Upcycle a Step Stool for Kids
I found this step stool for kids at Goodwill the other day. It was $7.00. Man, am I lucky with my thrift store finds lately! Just the day before I almost bought a kid’s step stool at a retail store for $20.00; and it was on sale. Thank goodness my cheapskate-ness (is that a word?) got the best of me! Naturally, this find resulted in a great trash to treasure project.
I decided that I wanted to pad it and add fabric since I had some left over padding from the $5 garage sale bench I made not long ago.
Here are the materials you need:
- Wooden step stool
- High density craft foam
(it doesn’t have to be high density, but this is what I had so I used it) - Spray adhesive
- Half yard of fabric
- Spray paint
- Drop cloth
- Sand block and sand paper
- Scissors
- Staple gun
- Staples
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- Ribbon
(it doesn’t have to be high density, but this is what I had so I used it)
Here is the stool before.
Thrift store finds can often be questionable when it comes to cleanliness. After I cleaned the stool, I had to lightly sand and paint it because of the marks and scratches.
Once it was dry, I cut and pieced together the craft foam to fit the top of the stool.
I used a craft spray adhesive to attach it.
I bought a half a yard of outdoor fabric and cut it to size.
I turned the fabric upside down on my craft table. Placed the stool padded side down and centered and stapled the fabric to the rim of the stool, pulling the fabric taught as I stapled.
Next I trimmed the excess fabric.
I hot glued ribbon around the trim to give it a finished look. Here is an after photo! My daughter loves it. She props her little legs up on it when she looks at her books in her reading nook I made her. It’s adorable!
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Well explained Dinah, I have a very old tool that belonged to my grandma.It has not been used for many years, I guess I will try to do all these and do some extra decorations to that stool.
Thanks for giving me the idea.
cheers!
Thank you! I hope you try it! Send me a photo!
Oh this is such a great idea… I soooo need to do this.. I have one that my nieces have drawn with texta on… Lol.. great idea.. going to do it1
Hi Jade! I hope you do!! Send me a pic; I’d love to see it!
Love this idea!!! 🙂
Thank you, Cindy! My daughter uses it practically everyday!
This is super cute!
Thank you, Sarah!!
Such an adorable transformation. Loving the colours you chose!
A really beautiful outcome. How sturdy is the fabric though? It seems as though it may get ripped quite easily after a couple of spills and hundreds of bottoms hitting the cushion?
Thank you! It’s still very sturdy. We use that stool still today and now I have 2 kids. I used an outdoor fabric so it worked well.
Interesting idea, thanks!