DIY Sofa Reupholstery and the Revival of the Blog

This blog...this poor, poor blog.  So sad, lost and forgotten!  It's been FOUR MONTHS since the last post!  However I do take comfort in knowing I made that post, meaning I'm slightly less of a slacker than my two lovely sisters...right? :) Just kidding ladies.

But really, we have all been so bad about this.  I think my biggest issue is that I have felt like the most boring person ever and that I didn't have anything interesting to share...until now!

So we have this sofa...this incredibly ugly yet very comfortable freebie sofa that was given to us by some family friends.  I cannot begin to describe how much I disliked this sofa, or really just the upholstery.  That 80's green and pink floral just wasn't my cup of tea at all.  Right after we got married we tried a slipcover on it and that did not turn out well.  Because the back cushions are more pillow-like it just looked lumpy and the slipcover wouldn't stay put.  That solution only lasted about a day.  So it went back to being that hideous floral print.

After that first slipcover debacle I decided I wanted to cover just the cushions and pillows, and then slipcover the rest so it would look at least halfway decent without being lumpy.  Jared, however, wanted me to redo the ENTIRE thing because of his hatred of slipcovers in any form.  We went back and forth about this for a while.  Was he crazy?  I couldn't try to take on an entire sofa for my first reupholstering project...or could I?

Finally, a couple weeks ago I decided I was just going to do it.  I read tons of tutorials from Pinterest and did my best to prepare...and so it began!


PART I: The Cushions

Originally I thought the cushions would be the easiest part of this project.  I had made pillow covers before, so how hard could it be?  Boy was I wrong.

The back cushion/pillows were simple enough, and they only took me about an evening and a half between cutting all the pieces and sewing them together.

Then we get to the pain-in-the-rear seat cushions.  They don't even have any piping on them, again leading me to believe that they'd be easy.  But the way that they were constructed ended up being a lot more complicated than I thought.  Since the cushions will vary from sofa to sofa, I'll just give you my tips for making the whole process easier instead of a step-by-step.

Tip #1: Use what you have! I started by ripping one of the existing cushion covers apart with a seam ripper to reference as pattern pieces.  I also re-used the existing zippers because I was having a hard time finding zippers that would be long enough.

Tip #2: Get the right needles and thread! Part of what made these take so long was that I didn't have the right kind of sewing machine needles for this fabric.  They were #80 universal needles, and my fabric was a fairly thick woven.  I broke about 5 needles before I gave up and got more heavy duty (#100, Denim) needles the next day.  **Make sure you have the correct needles for the type of fabric you have!  When in doubt, the people at the fabric/craft store will usually be able to help.**  You will save a lot of time and frustration, not to mention a lot of broken needles.

Tip #3: Pinterest it up!  Especially if you're a beginner at this, find as many tutorials as you can on Pinterest, YouTube, etc.  I've done a good handful of sewing projects so I wasn't a total beginner, but I had never had to sew a zipper before...I always made my mom do it. :)  So I found this blog that teaches you how to sew zippers!  So handy!


PART II: The Frame

Supplies you may need:
- Flathead screwdrivers for removing staples (I had a few different sizes on hand)
- Pliers of some sort for removing really stubborn staples
- Thick gloves (these will come in handy when you're taking the staples out of the fabric)
- A vessel for collecting staples as you go

This part seems so daunting, but in reality it's much easier than it seems.  I started by ripping that sucker apart piece by piece.  I completely discarded the skirt and piping from around the bottom since I was way too lazy to attempt redoing that.  I pulled the back piece off on the top and sides, but left it attached along the bottom.  I wanted to have the existing batting and fabric to use as a reference for my new piece.

I did something similar on the end pieces, leaving most of it attached along the bottom and partway up the sides.  Before you start attaching new fabric, it's a good idea to vacuum out the inside of the sofa.

These arm caps were easy to remove since they were simply nailed in.  I also removed the piping from around the edges of these (again...way too lazy and I didn't think it was necessary).

Once you've got it taken apart it's easier to see how the whole thing is put together and which pieces need to go on first.  I started with the inside back piece and the front along the bottom.  Since I had a fabric with a large pattern, I made sure it was mostly centered on the sofa.  Then just pull, tuck, and staple away!  I used my cheapo $10 staple gun and it didn't do too bad.  Because I'm still lazy, I didn't bother removing the existing fabric.  I just removed the staples that attached it to the inside frame so I could pull the new fabric through.

Next came the tops/insides of the arms.  That was one of the easiest parts, surprisingly.  Just fold and staple so it fits the curve!

For the sides of the arms, I started by stapling along the top, with my new piece of fabric flipped over so I could staple underneath it and the staples wouldn't show.  Hopefully this makes sense with the photos.

The last big piece was the back.  Originally the sides of the back piece were attached using metal tack strips, which I took out and discarded since I wasn't sure how well they would work to reuse.  I stapled the top of this piece using the same tactic I used to do the end pieces so I wouldn't have staples showing along the top.

I ended up just stapling outside of the fabric on the vertical edges of the back.  I originally didn't want to have staples showing, but since the fabric pattern is mostly grey they don't really show too bad here.  No harm done.  I did end up having to get some longer staples for this part because there were so many layers of fabric to go through at this point.

The arms caps were very last.  Just staple the new fabric over the old!  I didn't bother taking them all apart.  The nails stayed where they were and it was pretty easy to just hammer them back in place through the fabric.

Ta da!!!  This whole process only took about a day.  The only part I didn't finish that day was stapling all the edges onto the bottom of the sofa.


PART III: The Reveal

Drumroll please.....

Voila!  I am so happy with how this turned out!  I thought I couldn't do it, but the parts I thought would be hard turned out to be the easiest, and vice versa.  Of course I never would have done it if my dear sweet husband hadn't believed I could (he's pretty proud of himself for being right). :)

So there you have it!  Comment below if you want any more details or have any questions!