So I should totally be in bed right now, but I figure I'm going to spend half the night getting my neurotic cat to stop howling at the window all night and anyway the pants I want to wear tomorrow are in the dryer and I don't want to iron them, so I'm waiting for them to be done.
Now is the perfect time to display my weekend project! On Friday I acquired a free couch from Freecycle. Google this organization if you don't know what it is. It requires you to join a yahoo group and you get a lot of emails, but every once in awhile there's a real find. I've been using a papasan chair for over a year and really wanted something that was a) more comfortable, and b) didn't say "OMG what a nice dorm room!"
I picked it up Friday and on Saturday one of my colleagues helped me get it up my stairs. Below is the before picture. It's in good shape, but it's missing the seat cushion (flew out of someone's truck, apparently). One of the back cushions isn't pictured; those bags are stuffing. Also, it's kinda boring.
It came with four throw pillows that had backs in the same fabric as the couch and this stuff on the front, which really doesn't jive with my whole color scheme:
Grandma always said, waste not, want not. I endeavored to use as much of the original fabric as possible, so I only removed the front panel of each back cushion. This saved me a lot of work, as I didn't have to mess with the zipper! I then used the panels I removed and the back panels from the throw pillows to piece together a bottom for the seat cushion. That way, everything is tied together, too.
The seat cushion. Wow. That was an adventure. I was originally going to use foam, but JoAnn Fabrics was charging $80 a yard for 5" thick foam! Holy mole! I spent some time being frustrated but then realized that I had a ton of stuffing at home-even more if I took stuffing out of the poor, tired papasan mattress that had no hope of survival anyway-the grape kool-aid stains would see to that. So, I took the stuffing from the papasan to stuff the seat. None of the cushions fit particularly well right now, but with some use the stuffing will settle. I have two extra bags, so if it settles too much I can always add more!
The seat cushion. Wow. That was an adventure. I was originally going to use foam, but JoAnn Fabrics was charging $80 a yard for 5" thick foam! Holy mole! I spent some time being frustrated but then realized that I had a ton of stuffing at home-even more if I took stuffing out of the poor, tired papasan mattress that had no hope of survival anyway-the grape kool-aid stains would see to that. So, I took the stuffing from the papasan to stuff the seat. None of the cushions fit particularly well right now, but with some use the stuffing will settle. I have two extra bags, so if it settles too much I can always add more!
The addition of the couch required a new furniture arrangement....so the bench that used to be my tv stand long ago has moved to the "dining room" which is now just officially a practice and book room, because there's no way a table is ever going to fit in there. My cello doesn't even get to stay there.
Total cost of the project: $30 for two yards of upholstery fabric (54" wide) at Hobby Lobby on sale. Not bad! I did spend some time cleaning and steaming the couch-but who doesn't have a ton of time, right? Right?
Great job!
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