My love seat looks pretty threadbare. Why? Well, there is a fun story behind this couch. It used to belong to the men's lounge at the college my husband and I attended. It was circulated through the men's dorm from room to room as they replaced the lounge furniture. It eventually made it's way to my husband and his roommates who took a house locally. When we got married, it became ours. Fun fact, the couch is as old as I am! I found a label on the bottom that has it's manufacture date. But when we got it, it was looking sad. The cushions were getting frayed and ripped. They were the same material as the rest of the rest of the couch. So I took action and recovered the cushions.
My first effort was an ivory. Enter baby number one with sharpie markers! Hmm... Bad choice. So my next choice was a dark brown corduroy. This was easier to maintain. Harder to stain too. So I have recovered it in the brown corduroy twice. Now it is several years later and it just hasn't held up to college students visiting and the kids abuse. (Mostly the kids!) so, we stopped at Joann's the other day and I looked at more brown corduroy. It was $12.99 a yard on sale for 40% off. Hmm... I need about 5-6 yards of this stuff... So I looked at the red rage fabric. Low and behold, upholstery fabric! And half off all red tag fabric too! Score! It was originally $29.99 a yard, (yikes!) red tag for $21.99 a yard, (ok, that's a little better) and all red tag was half off so I scored at $10.50 a yard! This fabric was so perfect.
It was the brown I needed, the upholstery fabric that holds up longer, and it even has little flecks of purple and gold all through it! So matched my stuff!
But, at the cutting counter, there was only 3 yards left, I took a risk, I know, but it turned out perfect! There was just enough to do the whole couch! Even my hubby said it looked sharp! I started by taking my cut pieces and folding them right side down over my cushions and pinned them in place then sewed two seems up the sides like pillow case. Once I turned them right side out it was a mattering stuffing the cushion back into them and hand sewing the seem in the back.
I really like the way this turned out! It looks better and it should hold up longer. I think I want to try my hand at recovering the rest of the couch at some point. Hmmm... Another project to ponder...
Amazing blog!!
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