Sofa Renovation: Part Two

 Back for part two of my sofa/chair transformation.  For this project I purchased 10 yards of olive green upholstery velvet (and then an additional 5 yards just to be on the safe side), olive green braided trim, and upholstery staple gun, staples, olive green upholstery thread, heavy duty needles, wood stain, sanding blocks, and paint stripper.  For the cost of these items I could have bought a new couch.  That needs to be said.  However I doubt it would have lasted as long or been as comfortable as this and I really wanted to save these beautiful antiques, so I invested in them instead of buying new.

All the work I did at home went smoothly.  There was a learning curve of course but I expected it and just tried to be patient with myself.  I enlisted the help of a very sweet lady who used to teach classes in upholstery.  She gave me advice before I started the project on what to expect and pitfalls to avoid.

When it came time to do the cushions, I really preferred the look of a single on the couch to three individual pieces, so I peeled back the stuffing and wired those three metal frames together.  I then replaced the original stuffing and covered it all in a single wrap of batting to create a smooth piece.  Then I loaded everything into the car and drove to my friend's to start work.

The majority of the first day was problem solving, which needle, whose machine, how to cut.  At the end of 9 hours, we had the couch pieces cut and the chair cushion done.  This was when my friend noticed that the 10 and 5 yard pieces were from different dye lots.  That's right, the work we had done was from the 5 yd piece and I'd completely covered the frames at home from the 10 yd piece, so nothing matched.  I went home distraught.  I could see the difference in the dark now, why hadn't I noticed it before?!  

The next morning I laid out all the pattern pieces on what was left of the 10 yd lot and thankfully there was enough to do all the cushions.  While I hated to lose the day of work, my friend agreed to start over and we completed the cushions on our next work day.  Finally, after two months of work, we had a place to sit down a relax again!  And it turned out just as I had imagined and hope.