I am a moderate level at sewing. I want to upholster my 3 couchs in my living room so that they match or at least coordinate. Has anyone ever done this? Or should I just get a slip cover pattern and pray that it fits? Any links to doing this would be greatly appreciated!
Sharon, where are you? I know she recently recovered her sofa recently and did an excellent job. She can offer many good suggestions. I don't think patterns are available due to the different sizes and styles, but there are some books describing the details, one which comes to mind first is by Sunset, often sold at the box stores-Lowe's and Home Depot. I have covered some, but hesitate to offer much assistance because it's been many years since I've done any. Emily
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Right here!!! Freely admitting I'm no expert, but yes I dove right in (with a ton of help from my husband!!) and redid our couch. Here's pictures:
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#1 best piece of advice, go to a Home Depot type store and buy the bestpowered staple gun you can afford. We have an electric one. It didalright, but a stronger one would have been better. A dear friend of mineowns an upholstery shop. She has pneumatic staple guns. Trust me, if youtry to use a hand held staple gun, your hands won't last till the end of thefirst couch! Some people will tell you to use tacks and a hammer to holdthe fabric onto the frame. My pal says those will cut through the fabricand/or tear out of the fabric faster and easier than staples. The other tool you want to go out and get is a steamer. The inexpensive kind you can find at a discount store will work just fine. Foam dries out after a while. If you steam the foam that is inside the back of the couch (not the seating foam) you will be amazed at how much it will poof up. I thought my couch had 1/4" foam over the back. After I steamed it, I learned it was 1" foam. Pretty amazing. You only want this for the foam on the back and arms. You will replace foam everywhere else on the piece. You may need to add some foam to the backs and arms over what is there. You might also want to get some cotton wadding/batting/stuffing. It's a shredded cotton product made for upholstery. Cotton quilting batting won't work in the same way. The cotton goes on over the foam and under the fabric on the backs, and arms. It just gives added body and softness. Plus if there are any dents or divots in your foam, the cotton will fill that in and smooth it out.
Ok. Plan on buying new foam for the seat cushions. It makes no sense to recover the whole piece and try to reuse the old seating foam. I really lucked out and found
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They are really closeto where I live, about 20 minutes away. They sell seating foam, but theydon't have it listed on the website. I got the 6" seating foam, cut to thesize I needed it, for about 1/2 of what I would have paid in a fabric store.(and most fabric stores won't cut it to size for you.) I think I paid $35for 3 cushions 23" square by 6" thick. You might call them and see whatthey could do for you mail order. Or look in your local yellow pages for asimilar business. The stuff inside of couch cushions that looks like batting from a quilt is called Dacron. You will want to get that to put on the top and bottom of each cushion. That goes on with glue. Spray glue works really, really well. You just cut it to the size of the cushion top or bottom, spray and stick it on there. Don't stretch it. The Dacron is what makes the cushions feel like you are sinking into them, like they are conforming to your behind. ;) That's a good thing. You can find that here:
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Baer's carries all kinds ofupholstery notions, fabric, foam, cotton, etc.Ok. Check out your local library and see if they have any books onupholstery. There are a few out there, but none that approaches the levelof what the Reader's Digest Complete Guide does for regular home sewing.But there are some out there that will give you some general guidance.Basically, you are going to use the pieces of your current couch as apattern. You will need to add at least 2" to all sides of each piece as youcut the new fabric. 1. Because you are adding new foam and cotton underthere and making it poofier. 2. Because the old fabric could have shrunkover the years. (now most likely it didn't shrink, but rather stretched.However if you've had the couches steam cleaned, the fabric could haveshrunk...it doesn't get pre-shrunk like the fabric you make clothing with.)3. And most importantly, because you are going to need something to pull on.When you attach the new fabric cover, you will tack it in one spot and thenpull it taut over the rest of that section. If you don't give yourselfextra fabric to pull on, you'll be in trouble. As for construction order, again look at the couch. As you take off the old cover, you need to take notes and I mean really good notes. You will figure out pretty quick which pieces went on the couch last, they will be the first ones you take off. They will be on over the top of other pieces. Then when you are ready to put it all back together, reverse the order of the pieces from the order you took them off. Make sense? Like if there is a skirt, you will take that off first. And it will be the last thing you put back on.
One last tip, if you have welting on your couch (I have been told only dressmakers call it piping. LOL) go ahead and buy a welting foot for your sewing machine. It will save you a ton of headache.
If you have more questions, or anything here didn't make sense, you are more than welcome to email me. mamahays *at* insightbb *dot* com. I haven't been keeping up with the newsgroups as much as I used to. I will see an email much faster. ;)
Did you look at the Sunset Books Simply Upholstery? I have a really old book on upholstery from Sunset that was a great help when I did some occasional chairs. Unfortunately, I missed any mention of saving the rubberized horsehair...... :(
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