Make a Stool From Reclaimed Materials

I recently broke my desk chair and I wanted to make something new out of it. The cushioning foam and the fabric were on good condition so I decided to collect them and make a stool as I have some cable drums lying around my house.

Material :
- Cable drum

- Cushioning foam

- Fabric (About 5 centimeters bigger than the drum diameter)

- Paint (Optional)

Tools:

- Marker pen

- Box cutter

- Stapler

- Sanding paper (Optional but recommended)

- Brush (Optional)

I used to work on building site and I noticed that the electrician were throwing away all their empty cable drums, so I asked them and collected a few. The only flaw they had was that they spent a few nights outside and got dirty from the weather, meaning that they now need a bit of sanding.

The first thing to do is to decided which side will be up and which one will be down, that way you can spare time sanding the apparent sides only. The faces you need to sand are the cylinder and one of the inner discs which will be on the lower part of the stool. Of course you can sand the others sides too, but the two outer discs will be hidden (One will face the ground and the other will be covered), and the other inner side will be partly covered and hidden by the angle of view.

Then sand it until you get something smooth and clean. Finally you can apply varnish or paint (It can help hiding some flaws in the wood).

That's an easy one, just put the drum on the foam and trace a circle around around it, then cut it and go to the next step.

For this one you might need a friend:

Lay the fabric on the floor, center the foam on it and put the drum above upside down. You will now need to apply pressure on the the drum to compress the foam in order to get the fabric well taut once it's fixed. You can try to put heavy objects on it, but the simplest way to do so is to ask a friend to stand on it (Your friend doesn't have to be heavy).

You can now proceed stapling the fabric on the drum. Stretch the fabric as you staple it, the method to get it well taut is to staple alternately on the opposite side while you turn around the drum.

In my case, the stapler wasn't strong enough so I had to use a hammer to fully push/mash the staples inside the wood. By the way, if you have a better solution for that, I'd be happy to learn it =)

Because the fabric is a bit larger than the drum diameter, it can be seen hanging loose (As in the picture). If so, use the box cutter to remove those parts, but do not cut too close from the staples or it can loosen the whole fabric.

You're done now. I've thought about some improvements I could make, like pads underneath to avoid scratches on wooden floor. I also thought about cutting the upper disc of the drum to make the seat square instead of keeping it round. If you have any other idea, please tell me !