Making an Ugly Sofa Beautiful

A few months ago, my boyfriend and I uprooted and moved one state over.  It was fairly short notice, so we just packed as much as we could into an SUV and drove to our new apartment. The only "furniture" we could fit in the car was a fold up table, tiny folding chairs and a blow up mattress. After living like this for a few days, I was finally able to go out to find a sofa. I ended up finding this nice camel back sofa with lion feet legs.

Isn't it beautiful?! Not. It had the ugliest slip cover, but a quick glance at the underlying fabric and I fell in love.

This is the story of how this ugly sofa turned into a beautiful piece of furniture.

I really wanted a darker colored sofa, but I figured I could paint it a la this tutorial and still have the pattern of the fabric show though. Unfortunately, when I got the couch home and removed the slip cover completely, there were a few problems.

The cushion was only covered by the fabric from the ugly picnic slip cover fabric. Yuck. While I brainstormed about what I could do, I just wrapped up the foam with an extra bed sheet cover. You probably noticed that the cushion looks bigger here than in the first picture, and that is true! I was able to score 4 pieces of high density upholstery foam for just $40. I was so excited. I ended up using two pieces on the couch and I'm going to use the other pieces to reupholster a little chaise lounge I got. But that will be a different post.

But back to updating the sofa - the first thing I thought I could do was to stick with the original plan and paint the couch. I figured I could paint it and then buy enough (almost) matching fabric to make a new cover for the cushion. Sadly this couldn't happen because I noticed small tears in the fabric that would eventually tear more and more as we used it. That must have been why they slip covered it in the first place.

The second thing I thought I'd try was to attempt to dye the slip cover black. I felt as though that was the only color that could cover the ugliness of it or at least tone it down so the plaid wasn't too bad (a.k.a. too noticeable). After ordering a bunch of dye only to accidently lose half of it down the drain before I even started dyeing the fabric and then having the fabric not take any of the color (yay for rushing things and not figuring out what kind of fabric it was) I decided to try a different tactic.

I found this tutorial and thought that this is the one that I'll do and I will make it work no matter what. I ordered quite a lot of this dark purple upholstery fabric and got to work.

I cut up the slip cover to make a rough pattern for the pieces and to take out the piping cording so I could remake piping in the new fabric. This picture shows after I sewed on the arm pieces.

And here it is almost done! It stayed like this for a while because, even though it was only a few straight lines I had to sew for the cushion, I kept psyching myself out. I only had enough fabric to attempt this once, and I was sure I would mess it up somehow. Eventually I decided to get the cushion done, so I glued the foam together so it would appear to be just one big piece of foam, I crossed my fingers and sewed up a huge rectangle. Thank. God. It fit. I had to enlist the help of the boyfriend to get the cover on, as the cushion is a foot taller than me, but we crammed it in there and it ended up being a perfect fit.

And here it is complete (or almost... I'm really tempted to paint the legs white)! I love it so much! I wish I had just skipped the whole dyeing debacle and went straight to this, but it all worked out in the end.

My first post and new travel set.

This is my first official post since this blog was created, and I'm oh so excited. I hope you guys like it! I decided to make a travel set the other day after being inspired to make a straightener cozy by gatheringtwigs over on Craftster.

Here's everything together:

Forgive me for the dirty mirror, I was too excited to take pictures that I didn't think to clean it up first!

Here's my straightener cozy, I made it with an oven mitt that should have been thrown away years ago:

Here's a progress shot that shows the poor worn out oven mitt.(I seam-ripped around it, it wasn't in that bad of shape, it was just burned a little.)

Here's the finished product with the straightener tucked inside.

After I made that I decided I needed a new makeup bag, and I had plenty of the outside fabric left over. I remember seeing a tutorial somewhere on Craftster about the same kind of style of makeup bag that I was going for, but I don't remember where it is so I had to kind of wing this one. I'll probably write up and post a small tutorial in a few days. For now, here's some pictures.

Here it is, all zipped up with stray threads hanging out everywhere. I promise I cut those off after I took these pictures! :)

Here it is, opened.

After I finished the bag, I decided I wanted to make one last thing to make it a complete set. I ended up using a cubicle mirror I had gotten from a mystery box I purchased at American Science and Surplus. (Great store, you should check them out) I cut a piece of fabric to size, sewed up the sides , fit the mirror in and glued it in place. I wish I had taken more pictures of the progress of the mirror, but I wasn't even sure if it was going to work at all! Perhaps I'll draw it out and post a tutorial for it along with the makeup bag.