The Courage To Reupholster A Sofa and (a Sort of) How To

I'm finally writing about this pretty camel back sofa I got last year, which went through a makeover. Now, I know this sofa is not perfect. I fully recognize areas that might be too lumpy or not pulled tight enough. Therefore, I must apologize to all of you perfectionists out there, but I'm just thrilled it's done and not looking half done. I am by no means a professional upholster. I upholstered a small chair a few years ago. I really wanted to bring this to an upholsterer but that darn budget forces me to take measures into my own hands, literally. I am so glad I did it. I had several friends come over and help me take this couch apart (I bribed them with lunch) and a good friend that helped me sew the cushion. 

One friend who came over to help me said encouragingly, "Tracy, you just have to look at this as your practice sofa. Who cares if it's not perfect? Try your best and don't worry about it." Oh, how wise! These were just the words I needed to hear to get over some of my fears of upholstering a whole sofa, which sounded daunting sometimes. Actually, it's good advice for anything we do, especially in design. There has to be some trial and error and we learn from our mistakes which help for the next project that we do. 

If you ever find yourself wanting to rescue that chair or sofa and you know you'll need to reupholster it, then know you can do it! You will need to have some determination, goals and band aids near by when you take that sucker apart. 

The sofa project took a long time because it got put on the back burner with other projects several times. I hope to be able to explain some tips and things that helped me upholster the sofa. Every sofa or chair is different and I'll explain the things that helped me with my particular sofa. 

Step 1: Find your vision and sturdy fabric

I had read how velvet is a wonderful durable upholstery fabric so I wanted to go with that type. Also, I knew I wanted to stick to something solid in color (as a beginner upholster). It would be difficult to match up stripes or a patterns. 

Finding navy blue velvet was not common. I ended up finding some on Ebay for $12/yard. 

                                                          image source

This chart helped me know about how much fabric to expect. It's always a good idea to buy extra fabric than what it calls for so you can feel safe you have enough.

2. Research

I looked up some You Tube videos and found this one most helpful here. Also, Jenny from LGN has some incredible upholstery tutorials. There are also several books out there that are helpful like this one, which I got at the library. 

Step 3: Stripping the sofa

You need:

-flat head screwdriver

-pliers

-hammer

-a bowl (to collect staples) and band aids (it's easy to hurt your hands doing this part. You could wear work gloves.)

Save all your pieces of fabric and label them. You will use these pieces as your template for your new fabric.Also, save the welting/rope to reuse it for the welting. My little girls added some stuffed animal friends on the sofa to keep me company. 

Step 4: Stapling the sofa:

You'll need: 

-Staple gun

-Air compressor with upholstery staples in the gun. This way it went fast!! (optional)

-Scissors

-the new fabric (cut pieces)

-Curved needle (I needed this in one section)

- I used cardboard for the front arm

- Fabri-tac adhesive

-Nail head trim (optional)

Once all your fabric has come off then you're ready for the stapling to begin! And yes, this looks like a mess. The other major motivator to work on the sofa was so our puppy wouldn't eat the whole thing. Don't you love all the little stuffing on the floor?

The curved arm originally had welting around it. I decided to make a separate piece to cover this area. Here's a good shot of the air compressor we used too.

Once I stapled the arm as best as I could I traced the shape of the arm onto a cereal box or thin cardboard.

The cereal box got covered with velvet using  fabri-tac upholstery adhesive. This stuff is great because it doesn't show any marks of glue once its dried and it really sticks well (it's a permanent adhesive that says its washable too).

                      Once the fabric was covered then I used brass nail head trim to hammer into place.

Work with what you have. Towards the end of the project I was running out of fabric. It wasn't too difficult to sew two pieces together on the machine and then staple the whole thing to the back. Again, this is not a perfect job, but I figured mostly the sofa will be against a wall so we won't see the back sewn piece.

The front bottom part of the sofa was tricky because the seat cushion was tightly sewn covering the springs and I didn't want to take that apart (which would have been a ton more work). I ended up using a curved needle and hand sewing the velvet to that section and stapling the bottom section.

Curved needle sewing isn't as scary as I thought. If you have the right tools, things go a lot more smoothly.

The cushion was sewn by my friend who has a great sewing machine. I asked her help because there were some sections where we were sewing through four layers of velvet (because of the welting). My basic sewing machine would not be able to handle all that work. I'm not going to explain the cushion sewing since she did most of it.
Overall, I'm happy to have a piece of furniture in our library room now besides our piano. Someday, we will add side chairs and a small coffee table, but this room is baby steps to being done. It's good for the soul to try challenging, out of our norm projects and I'm glad I did.

here
and linking this to:
Not Just A Housewife