The Saga of Our First Reupholster

My daughter, Hanna, was given, from my mom, a sofa, loveseat and recliner that was gently used. Hanna and many friends heavily used the furniture during Hanna's college years. At one time, she lived in a very large house with 6 other people, two dogs and a cat. Well, you get the picture. The furniture base was still in good shape but the upholstery was in need of some help. Hanna and I went to Ikea and found this stripe fabric on sale for 3.99 a yard. It is a heavy-duty canvas and very contemporary. We had initially decided to make slip-covers. Hanna decided we should try and reupholster! I have NEVER reupholstered anything, nor has Hanna. But hey, I can read a blog! I searched around through Pinterest and my blog roll and found several sites that were helpful and we gave it a try. We recovered the loveseat pictured below and the sofa, which I failed to take a photo. The sofa is a bit better, as we learned a few tricks in covering the smaller loveseat. It took us about 9 hours to just get the old fabric off because there were thousands of staples to be removed. We spent an additional day covering the loveseat and about a third of the sofa before falling over from exhaustion. Hanna had to work the third day so I tackled all the sewing for the sofa and we finished it up the third night. I sewed the last stitch at 9:00 PM and by 9:15 I was in the truck to drive my 2 1/2 hour drive home. It was a fun experience because I shared it with my sweet daughter. It was also easier in some ways and much harder in others than I thought. I didn't imagine the difficulty of removing the fabric and staples. Both of our hands were swollen the following day from griping needle nose pliers to pull staples. One thing that was helpful, each step of removing the fabric, we snapped a photo on my iPhone. We were able to refer back when we had a question of "What next?"  The sofas are contemporary and fits Hanna's personality and gives her tons of colors to coordinate the rest of the apartment. 

After
&
Before

Hanna hard at work.

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