DIY Upholstered Sofa

What do you get when you take a faded tapestry covered camelback sofa …

… add some turquoise cotton velvet 98″ Ikea Sanela Curtains …

… plus 150 French Natural Tacks from Fabric Farms Interiors and a little Nesting Place confidence?

 Answer: A fun and inexpensive updated sofa.

This post isn’t so much a tutorial as encouragement, because if I can do this project then anyone can.

It all started when I was feeling overwhelmed while looking for fabric to upholster our sofa. Fabric can be expensive and I didn’t want to spend several hundred dollars on nice fabric only to have my upholstery job turn out less than acceptable. If you know what I mean?  Then I happened upon this post from Cuckoo 4 Design. Julia upholstered her daughter’s headboard with cotton velvet curtains from Ikea, and I was all what a genius idea! I wish I thought of it!  The curtains are 55 inches wide, upholstery weight, have finished seams which I can use to my advantage, and there are two 98″ panels. That is over 5 yards of fabric for under $50. How exciting!  So I bought some curtains along with some nail heads. Done. Then it all just sat there … staring at me … every time I passed the living room. This is where the Nesting Place confidence enters into the picture. I starting reading The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful (I highly recommend this comical, encouraging and inspiring book) and I got to the chapter on risk and it freed me from feeling like the upholstery had to be perfect. In fact, if the upholstery was less than perfect, my guests would more likely feel comfortable sitting on it. So I picked up the curtains and started the project, and before you know it I had an updated DIY upholstered sofa that I love and my guests won’t be afraid of.

Basically this is a slipcover that I tacked into place. I followed Miss Mustard Seed’s Videos on How to Make Slipcovers. With right sides down, the hemmed edges of the curtains were lined up with the bottom of the existing upholstery. To keep things casual, I didn’t use any piping.

I used lots and lots of pins.

There were a total of 6 seams to sew. I was surprised at how easy it was.

After the sewing was done, I clipped away all the extra fabric with pinking shears.

The cover was then turned right side out and placed on the sofa. Everything was smoothed into place. The hardest part of the job was lining up the tacks.  To help, I used the hem line as a guide and made marks one inch apart across the bottom. After a few trial and errors with the mallet, I got used to hammering the tacks in.

Slowly but surely, I’m getting there.