Such Treasures

Phase 1 is complete as of last night. Naomi helped me up until dinner time. We got all the rest of the fabric off and most of the staples out. I gave up on getting every one of them out. My knuckles are raw and my palms are very sore, but on we go… After we finished taking it apart, Naomi vacuumed up all the junk that came out of the couch (missed staples and ugly dust bunnies and garbage). I vacuumed all the foam. Then Naomi followed me to the kitchen where she, my sweet 8 year old, made the salads and helped get dinner on the table.

Today we began Phase 2 — the actual reupholstery. I laid out the old pieces and used them as guides to cut out pieces from my new upholstery fabric. Where the old pieces had some sort of stiff interfacing attached for unseen areas of the couch — I suppose to save money where the upholstery fabric wouldn’t show anyway — I used denim from my stash. Naomi helped me sew these on to the main pieces. (Naomi has a helper’s heart.) We’ve only completed two areas of the couch so far, both in cutting and in attaching. One step at a time…

We tucked in the fabric for the base, which included a self casing to enclose the padding (shown above). See the fabric folded up above the padding? That we folded down over the padding. What you can’t see is another piece of fabric under the padding. It is attached to the main piece also, making the self casing I mentioned.

I am not totally happy with what I was able to do here. See that long white foam tube behind Naomi (above)? That was supposed to go back on the couch along with the padding. Only the manufacturer attached it with these monster long staples that I have no way of duplicating. So I left out the foam tube. Perhaps a mistake, but we’ll see. This is what it looks like now, after folding the top fabric over the padding and then stapling it to the base.

It is a little bumpy, but keep in mind that I haven’t stretched it taut and stapled it from behind yet.

We followed the same procedure to cut out the back rest pieces, also piecing it with stash denim for the unseen parts. Here it is after we have sewn it, spread it on, and stapled it. We stapled it all on the back side because it wraps around to the back both on top and bottom. Between the arm and the back, the fabric is stuffed in there as far as it will go.

I like how the gathering was done in the division between the two halves of the back rest. The two pieces (mirror images) are seamed together and then seamed again 3/8″ inch from the original seam to create a casing for a heavy string to pass through. Once the back rest was stapled down, I could secure the string on the top to the top back of the couch frame, then pull it taut at the bottom back and staple it to the bottom back frame. Looking at the picture, I think I need to go back and pull it tighter.

I’ve cut out the arm pieces yet but haven’t sewn them to fit around the arms yet. In the original couch, that seam is piped. I can’t decide if I want to pipe it or not. I like piping, yet I favor simplicity. I also know that eliminating the piping will save me time, but on the other hand, piping can cover imperfections. I know I’ll have to do piping to cover the staples going around the entire base of the couch. If I leave off the piping on the arms, perhaps that won’t look balanced.

One other thing I haven’t decided is whether or not to skirt the couch. The original couch was skirted. I do like the look of a couch with legs.

Above is view of the back so far. The white cloth is the underside of the denim that is pulled between the back rest and the base and then stapled to the back frame to hold those pieces taut. You can also see the corner of the top, where I had to fold the fabric to tuck away the excess. I had a photo the original couch at this point, so I was able to model it. I am pleased with how that looks.

P.S. All the spots are on my camera, not on the fabric.