Hallelujah!

 

 

Cue the hallelujah chorus, my friends.  The sofa is done!

   

It's hard to photograph a looooonnnnggg sofa.... I swear it looks more spectacular in real life.  Or maybe that's just because I can lay on these fluffy down cushions and my feet don't touch the end.  Eight exquisite feet, people.  The stuff dreams are made of.  This is the place to take a nap.

 

  

Originally,  J and I had picked out a large print.  But we ended up going with this wavy dotted blue-green fabric.  A much smaller print.   And I'm glad.  Not too many pattern matching issues came up.  And the lines followed a geometric pattern, which made cutting easy.  I decided on the natural canvas cording despite my misgivings about the previous white upholstery job.   Fingers crossed that it will stay clean.

 

And here's the back.  Oh, the beautiful back!  If we did anything perfectly, it was this.  Stretched smoothly, stapled seamlessly, double welted impeccably...  and no one will ever see it.  I told J that we need to turn it around and have it face the window for a while.  Then the back would be the first thing you see when you walk in the room.

And here's some hot close-up double and single welt action for all you amateur upholsterers out there.

  

Check out that nifty little pocket where the zipper pull stays hidden.

 

By far, the most time consuming part of this project was sewing the box cushions.  Design*sponge just recently posted a fabulous boxed cushion tutorial if you are interested.  I reckon I spent about two hours per cushion.  That included making the cording, which was incredibly time consuming as well.  I made miles of it.  Miles.  

 

The actual covering of the couch was pretty quick.   I'm guesstimating it took us about eight hours all together.  Including double welt.   J spent quite a few hours patching and repairing the wood frame.  He thinks about six hours.  Granted all of this was spread out over, um..... ten months?

 

Ok, really we did most of it the last month.

Here's the timeline:

May- Bought sofa from Salvation Army for $27.  Husband and I decide to upholster it ourselves.

Early June- Strip down sofa to burlap, springs and wood.  Learn so much in the process.  Take muchos photos.

June through December- In paralytic shock over how much upholstery fabric costs.   The $27 couch becomes much more costly.  Sofa sits in smelly heap in living room for 7 months.

New's Years Eve- Spend Christmas money on fabric.

January- Upholster sofa through trial and error.  Also, have many arguments over whose modus operandi is better.  I fly by the seat of my pants.  J, well, is a researcher.  I think we needed a little of both.

 

Here's my unsolicited advice to anyone who is interested in trying something like this--

You can do it.

Seriously, you can.  There are only two things you need to survive the process:

Perseverance and lots of Dacron. (That's that fluffy business up there in case you are wondering.)

Yes, Dacron is your friend.  It smoothed out all the lumps and bumps and made the fabric stretching process so much easier.  I was super pleased with the finish.  We actually used more Dacron than the previous upholsterers (they actually used a batting) and I think our upholstery job is nicer.  We'll see how it all holds up.

Also, I think it helps to have two people to pull and staple.  Especially on a piece this large.

 

I swore I wasn't going to post any more kitty photos.   When I scrolled back through all my posts on the sofa, she's in every one.  Every. Single. One.   I'm sure there are people reading and rolling their eyes.  

Another cat photo? Sheesh.  Crazy cat folks...    

But she's just so darn cute.  And the couch is directly in front of the bird watching window.

 

Your perch is ready, my dear.

(Note to my mother:  It's not really her perch.  I swear I'm trying to keep her off of it.)

*****

Would you like to know more about this project?

Here are links to all my posts.

I highly recommend the stop motion video ;)

Introduction

Stripped Down

First Fabric Choice

A Letter to my Sofa

Repairing the Wood Frame

Jack White was an Upholsterer

Sofa Stop Motion

Cheers!