Turn An IKEA FLISAT Into A Beautiful Boucle Footstool With TikTok's Stylish Hack

IKEA's FLISAT stool is a sweet piece for the kids' table, but grown ups with a love for expensive-looking decor can get in on the fun, too. As shown by TikToker Dalia Aly, it's super easy to turn this kiddie's chair into a chic footstool — and with the DIY boucle cushion on top, an on-trend one, at that. Kids' furniture never looked quite so fabulous. 

This incredibly easy DIY hack uses the FLISAT stool ($54.99 on Amazon), a wood stain in your preferred shade, and a cute pillow fashioned from cushion foam and boucle fabric. The process is pretty straightforward: First, sand the stool until smooth — Aly uses 120 grit sandpaper and a 220 grit sanding sponge for this process. Next, use a rag to stain it the color of your choice. Aly opted for a walnut stain, which is available on Amazon for $6.99. However, you could also go for something lighter, like an oak stain from Amazon for $8.99, or tap into the 2024 wood stain color of the year, blue, for around $12. 

While the stain dries, make your cushion. All this requires is cutting some cushion foam (available for $20 on Amazon for a three-inch, 18x18 block) to size underneath the main square portion of the stool. Cut out the same size of cardboard for the base, then wrap the fabric over the two elements and staple on the underside. To attach the cushion to the stool, spray the top of it with an adhesive spray, like 3M Hi-Strength 90 Spray, and attach it to the top of the stool. If you'd prefer a removable option, stick fabric-appropriate Velcro strips (around $14 on Amazon) to both the cushion and the stool top. That's it!

We weren't exaggerating when we said this was an expensive-looking DIY project. However, though the intention is to save you money on buying a footstool ottoman (which can be upwards $100 on some sites), it can be easy to spend a lot of money on achieving this hack, especially if you have multiple stools to make. Boucle fabric, for instance, can be pricy online (we're talking more than $67 per yard on Walmart's website). 

Thankfully, there are several ways to get around potentially high costs that won't alter the finished look of your DIY foot stool. The first tip is to purchase your materials from the local fabric supply, rather than a department store. The Fabric Outlet sells boucle for nearly $20 cheaper per yard than Walmart. Alternatively, since you'll be stapling the fabric to cushion foam, you can pull the fabric from two boucle cushion covers from Amazon for $17.99. Or, if you're not phased by a boucle lookalike, rather than the real deal, use fabric from a chenille blanket (available on Amazon for $23.99). 

As for the cost of the FLISAT stool itself, this would be easy enough to do with any kids' stool, so if you can source one on Facebook marketplace, go for it. Alternatively, one cheaper alternative to IKEA's FLISAT is Beright's wooden step stool, available on Amazon for $29.99. If you find yourself with leftover fabric and cushion foam, you may even want to order a pack of two of the stools for under $50. Cheap, easy, and easily customizable — this is certainly a TikTok tip worth trying.