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Saturday, May 25, 2013

How to Recover a Sofa with a Dropcloth

 

 I've been revamping my living room for the past few weeks.  I've had enough of the beige.  I've changed out the curtains, here, then made a small work space for myself,  over there, we are picking out new floors (yay!)...but that darn sofa. 


 When we moved here, we bought a really formal sofa.  I call it "the Italian Stallion."  I liked it for the past 6 years, never noticed it really- didn't have time to, and then the dog destroyed the fringe trim on the euro pillows and well I just had to fix that! That's my excuse anyway  ;)

I started to search for a cute, small, sofa for the space.  I found a lovely sofa at Macy's online, but long story short, I missed the sale.  The spouse said to just buy it, but it was $300 more since I missed the sale.

So I sulked for a few moments and then it hit me, 

wait... I'm Planted and Blooming Girl...I'm not buying a new sofa, I'm just going to cover this one! 

 Okay, really the conversation in my head said, "just try this and hopefully it stinks and then you can buy that little sofa when it goes on sale again!"
I have been in eyeing up linen sofas and chairs, they are so fresh, but comfy looking.  I immediately fell for this...

Inspiration sofa 



...only because it has some wood trim and so did my sofa.  Plus I wanted dark wood to tie in with my dining room set.
I did a little research, and yes, canvas drop cloths were used, like everyone else in blog world, but I didn't want a slipcover, I decided to recover it.  After a little YouTube tutorial, I figured I had enough skills, I bleached the drop cloths and borrowed a Brad Gun, I was ready.  I learned via my YouTube Video that my sofa was indeed made very well, so some guilt was setting in about experimenting on it.
Our sofa...the Italian Stallion Before...

I have no clue what that orange thing is next to the sofa-5 kids, a dog... anyway,
Once I got started, I found that my glue gun did better on the little areas, yes, I said GLUE GUN.  I would literally hot glue everything if I could. I do not recommend hot gluing your reupholster job, but I have to tell you that stuff sticks and for good.  I was going to just hot glue the fabric on and go back and staple but no, just glue.
 I decided to try it, what the heck?  If it falls apart well, then I'll just get that little sofa...when it goes on sale again.
First, I removed all of the wood-like trim, flat head screwdriver- style, then I took them out back and sprayed them a glossy espresso.




what the heck is that, right?  (Old flower pot for support)



hot glued it all on, cut off the access
 at this point I was thinking the stairs were easier to do!






Now I'm seein' some light at the end of this tunnel
Next, I took a break for a week and scared my whole family because they thought I was leaving it 
I sewed up some covers for the pillows, ran out of drop cloth and had to go buy, bleach, and dry more....and sew the cushion covers.  Now I know I got a little slacky on these, but I couldn't hot glue these so it was time consuming and I'm impatient remember?  Finally, I used the Brad Gun and put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  I like it.  I won't bore you with the ottoman pictures, same deal, I took it apart, sprayed it and of course, hot glued on the new fabric and reattached the cushion.
And don't ya know, the darn Macy's sofa is back on sale again, but I think we'll keep Mademoiselle Dropcloth for a little while! 








We have exciting things happening this coming month, I can't talk now, but coming soon...and no... It's not a another baby.