Faux Gator Coffee Table

Materials: LACK table, faux gator upholstery fabric, staple gun, sewing machine

Description: My poor IKEA LACK coffee table has been through a lot. Originally black, I attempted to paint it silver (big mistake), then painted it white, then covered it with a white and gold patterned contact paper. For year€™s I'€™ve wanted to cover it with some sort of reptile skin. I never imagined it would turn out THIS fantastic.

Here'€™s what I did:

I ordered about 3 1/2 yards of this awesome Faux Leather Gator fabric in Pearl White from FABRIC.com. It'€™s upholstery fabric with felt backing, but it'€™s not too heavy.

After I disassembled the table, I laid the large pieces on top of the fabric and cut around, leaving about 2 inches around each side.

One of the problems I face was figuring out how to make the finished product look as smooth and seamless as possible. I ended up cutting a diagonal line at each corner and then hand-sewed together from the inside.

Enter the staple gun. I pulled the fabric as tight as I could so that it would lie flat on its top and stapled along all sides on the bottom of the table. For the bottom shelf of the table, I didn'€™t sew the edges. It'€™s much thinner than the table top, so it was far easier to simply fold and staple underneath to get the effect I needed.

The legs were the most difficult part! I wanted to make sure the legs looked clean, so I decided to sew the fabric here as well. The leg is 8 inches all around, so I measured and cut the fabric accordingly, then sewed together with a sewing machine. There'€™s a screw on the inside of each leg that the bottom shelf sits on. I had one hell of a time getting the fabric tight enough not to sag once on the leg, but not too tight that it wouldn'€™t slip over that screw. Only a few cuts on the hands and several broken nails!

To make the legs look more finished, I stapled the fabric to the top and bottom of each leg.

VOILA!

See more of the faux gator Lack coffee table.

~ Catharine, New York, NY