Create A Stylish Footrest For Your Furniture With This DIY-Friendly Pool Noodle Hack

When you have a non-reclining couch or chair, you miss out on having a footrest, where you can lay back and kick your feet up to feel more comfortable. Instead of buying a new couch with reclining seats or an expensive footrest, you can DIY a stylish one for your furniture. All you need is duct tape, yarn or fabric, and the hot DIY material of the year — pool noodles. 

This DIY has been floating around TikTok, where users create a round footrest with pool noodles, fill the center with pieces of more pool noodles, and duct tape it together to secure it. The duct tape gets covered in jute or thick yarn for an elevated look. It's one of the most affordable DIYs you can replicate that will provide your feet with comfort and enhance your furniture.

This ingenious pool noodle hack is effortless, and you only need minimal materials. For instance, you can purchase pool noodles at your local dollar store; you'll need about five to seven. Don't worry about the pool noodles' color since they'll be covered up. You'll also want to pick up a couple of rolls of duct tape and a utility knife since it's one of the best tools to cut your pool noodles. When deciding whether to use jute rope, thick yarn, or fabric, opt for what will complement your interior. While all these materials are inexpensive, we can't help but question whether this hack is really more affordable than buying a retail footrest.

If you have a boho chic or rustic farmhouse interior, jute rope is an excellent material to cover your pool noodle footrest to elevate your home. The Home Depot sells 50-foot-long natural twisted rope for $4.97. You'll need a couple of packs to cover the entire footrest. Or, if you prefer something with a cozier look, Michaels sells 96-foot-long, thick yarn in multiple colors for $12.99, giving your footrest a plush, soft appearance.

Once you gather all your materials and choose an outer cover, hot glue the ends of one pool noodle to create a circle and repeat with two other noodles. Then, stack the three rounds on top of each other, hot gluing them to keep them in place. Next, cut the remainder of the pool noodles into sections that fit in the center of the circles you made, placing one noodle inside to measure the height and cut them all to size. Tape them down after your noodles are snuggled up in the middle. You want duct tape to cover the entire top and bottom surfaces and sides. Finally, hot glue your jute or yarn, starting in the middle of the top and gluing it in a circle until you reach the outer and continue around the sides. You end up with a gorgeous new footrest that can be placed in front of your couch or chair in your living room.

Some DIY projects will cost you more to make than simply buying the item you wanted to replicate, but the experience often pays for itself. However, if you have a spending budget, we tallied the costs and compared them to a few retail footrests. Assuming you purchase your pool noodles from Dollar Tree, the duct tape and jute rope from Home Depot, the utility knife from Walmart, and a glue gun from Joann Fabric and Crafts, the estimated cost could be around $24. If you have a few tools at home, the price is cheaper. If you swap the jute for yarn, it can slightly increase the price.

When you're shopping for footrests, there are various styles, sizes, and shapes that cause the price to fluctuate. For instance, if you're looking for a chic, minimal footstool, Amazon has a wooden footrest with a gray cushion for $34.99 in various colors. It's a simple, practical footrest and slightly more expensive than the DIY. Something similar to the pool noodle footrest would be Walmart's round, unstuffed footrest for $12.57, but you have to find or purchase materials to fill it for the cover to work as a footrest. Most footstools in a Google search will pop up to be more than $25, and if you purchase one online, some retail stores will even charge a shipping fee. Overall, the DIY project would be the most affordable route to take for a stylish footrest.