I Reupholstered a Sofa, and You Can Too!

Let me kick off this blog- inspired by this old ‘post’ that I never posted. Last summer i reupholstered a small sofa, and documented every step of the way. Let me say that I’m still proud of how it turned out, and I love my friends reactions when they say “wait….THIS was that pink sofa?!”

At the beginning of this summer, I was at a coffeehouse with a friend when we saw a small claw-footed loveseat across the street with a “FREE” sign on it. It had obviously been used (as a dog bed I’m pretty sure) but was still in good shape structurally. My first thought was “I can reupholster that!” Luckily, my friend drives a sweet minivan so we threw it in and hauled it to my apartment. Now I here I was with a ‘new’ sofa that looked like pepto-bismol and smelled like dog, and absolutely no experience with reupholstering anything.

After doing a lot of research, and finally biting the bullet that was buying fabric, I dove in headfirst to reupholstering the sofa and after about three months of work, I’m happy with the end result. Based on my experience, here are my tips to you:

1. Make sure you’re ready for the final product. The sofa probably won’t come out as perfect and taut as the original, and SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG. Because I pulled my little sofa out of the trash, I could have cared less about ruining it, because I had no emotional or monetary (yet) attachment to it. Use your judgement; don’t start with your grandma’s antique chair that once belonged to the Queen. You have to be okay with this, if you are, move on to step two. If you aren’t, have it professionally reupholstered.

2. There are two ways to remove the original fabric. You can haphazardly rip it off like you’re some sort of crazy person and create a fabric pattern later, OR you can slowly (and I mean slowly) but surely take each piece off and use those pieces as your pattern. I did the latter, but the former would work just fine (and be a great stress reliever) if you are a-ok with draping/pattern making.

3. If you’re ripping the fabric off, you can skip these next few steps. If you’re taking the pieces off one by one, I highly suggest taking a picture of EVERY THING you do. It is extremely helpful later to have something to look back at to see how the original fabric was stapled. I know you think you can remember it, but you won’t. I didn’t.

Some photo taking tips:

Take them with enough surrounding so you can get a better gist of what you’re trying to do. I had quite a few on my camera that were so zoomed in that all I could see were the staples, but couldn’t see what was draped where.

Take more than you need. It’s all digital anyway, so who cares if you don’t actually look at them. For every one that you take, take two more from different angles.

4. Once you figure out where to start (mine was the bottom) it’s pretty easy to see what pieces come off next. I recommend getting a tool that rips out staples. They exist. I did not use one, but using a screwdriver to pry them all out was a test of my patience. I also suggest writing any notes you think you need on the “pattern” pieces once they come off of the couch, like “ARM” or “BOTTOM” or “INSIDE”.

5. Okay, so now you should have a bare couch frame, a pile of pattern pieces, and a camera full of photos. Lay all of your “patterns” onto your new fabric. Make sure all of the pieces are right side out — you don’t want to cut and find out later that the fabric is wrong side out. Don’t cut ANYTHING out until you’re sure all of the pieces will fit on your new fabric. This link is pretty handy in helping estimate how much you’ll need: http://www.fabric.com/SitePages/Reupholstery.aspx . I recommend buying an extra yard, to be safe. ( I bought 8 yards for my little sofa and had about 1/2 a yard left over) I also bought red piping for the edges that ended up causing me 3 extra trips to Jo-Ann’s and being way more hassle than it was worth

6. Sew together any fabric that needs it. (arms, cushion, any sort of trim). This doesn’t have to be super perfect, as you can tighten the seams as you staple it later.

7. NOW, you can whip out your camera and starting at the most recent photo, follow the picture ‘steps’ until you’ve successfully stapled all of your pattern pieces onto the frame. Pull all the fabric as tight as you can for the sleekest look. I also have found that alternating between corners will keep the fabric at its tightest. i.e. don’t go along the edge and staple in a row. Instead, pull the first corner tight, and staple, and then pull the opposite corner tight, and staple, back to the first side, then opposite, and on and on until you’re at the middle.

That is it! Very simple concept but remember, don’t rush!! It takes a lot of time and patience to come out nicely.