How to choose your perfect Footstool

Things to consider when buying a footstool.

When shopping for a footstool it can be hard to visualise the stool in your own living room.

Our experienced team have come up with five main points for you to consider which should make it a doddle.

We call them the five ‘F’s’ of footstools!

Function

Setting out what you want to use your footstool for is the best place to start.  Do you require extra storage for DVDs, board games or photograph albums? Is your footstool just for your feet or do you need one large enough to double as a contemporary coffee table?

Are you after a bench footstool to create a welcoming entrance hall?

The footstool workshop can make all of these and more to your specifications in over 150 fabrics or your own.

The next thing to consider is how the footstool affects the room it is placed in.

Flow

A successful footstool for the centre of your sitting room will allow access on all four sides. 

It should complement the flow of your room and not block the traffic through the area.

When the proportions are right, the placement of a footstool can help to encourage flow in a particular direction, zone an area and create a sense of balance in an otherwise empty space.

Getting the proportions right is all about the footprint.

Footprint

To establish how much space your new footstool will or should take up is easy to establish.  Here are 4 handy tips for marking out your available space and deciding your footstool dimensions:

1. Makeshift cardboard box.  Using old cardboard boxes, tape a structure together of your preferred size of footstool and live with it for a few days in your lounge.  If it is too small you can add as much width, height or depth as you like until you’re happy.  Similarly, reducing the dimensions until you have your perfect fit
2. ‘The Floor is Lava’ method.  Just like the children’s game where you mustn’t step on the floor, try taping newspaper or old wallpaper to your floor and avoid standing on it.  This will show you the space around your footstool and help to decide the width and length.
3. Tape boundary.  Low tack tape can be used to draw an outline of your new footstool and adjusted to your liking before ordering.
4. Work out your storage.  If you need a footstool with storage, establish what you need to stash and the area that it may take up.  This will help you decide not only the size of footstool but also whether you need a medium depth storage footstool or a full depth storage footstool.

When you have a good idea of the above, then the very exciting part is choosing the fabric and what the footstool will look like.

Fabric

There are many things to consider when choosing the fabric for your footstool and our friendly staff are here to help.

We accept customer’s own material for upholstering onto a footstool as well as over 150 practical, durable and beautiful fabrics of our own that you can order free samples of before you make your final decisions before ordering.

We will help with all aspects of fire retardancy, fabric protection and the direction your fabric could be run in.

All we really need to know now is – What do you want it to look like?

Finish

We offer three different kinds of ‘top’ or ‘lid’ – plain, shallow buttoned and deep buttoned.

Each are expertly upholstered and finished beautifully.

You can choose to add a border, add piping or studs in a range of configurations and even select your leg!  What’s more – if you don’t see it on our website then ask.  We make every footstool from scratch in our traditional workshop.  This means that you can have almost anything you like and we can build it for you.