Camelback Comeback

When Hubby and I first bought our house, nearly a year ago, I knew I needed some extra furniture to fill it up. This sounds like great fun in theory, but our "Superfluous Furniture/Home Decor" expense fund had mysteriously run dry.

I've yet to get to the bottom of it.

So I turned to Craigslist, my new bestie. We had an entire extra living space to furnish, and we found this old gal for a reasonable price.

(these were the only pics I could find of the old couch)

I liked the shape of it and we both liked the color (at the time), so with a quick sniff and a once-over, we hauled it to our new, empty home.

Fast forward a few months and I'm not so thrilled with my purchase. Oh, I like the couch okay, but our dog, who is NOT allowed on any other furniture, has seen fit to curl up for an afternoon nap on numerous occasions. His tiny white hairs are a dead giveaway. Stinker. I really didn't mind so much, since we hardly ever use this room and have only sat on the couch a handful of times.

Also, I've since decided that buying a second-hand, upholstered piece of furniture this large is walking a little too close to the edge for me.

We briefly discussed getting a new one, but didn't want to spend the money. And besides, Mrs. DIY (moi) was pretty sure she could make a slipcover or reupholster it herself!

Sounds easy enough, right?

RIGHT.

So here she is! Sadly, I have no in-progress photos to share. I wasn't entirely sure I wouldn't scrap the whole thing mid-way through, and I didn't want any physical evidence.

What do you think? Totally different, right??

You guessed it- I stapled and hand sewed that baby right on top of the old upholstery.

The fabric I chose is probably a mid-weight cotton, so the stiffness of the old chenille underneath helped give it good structure.

I like to wing it. I'm wild like that.

The arms here probably took the most time. I sewed them on BY HAND, people, BY HAND. Not gonna lie- I'm pretty proud of myself. I even put a little piping in the cushions! I thought it would be a nightmare, but it wasn't too bad.

Then I made these babies for a little something extra.

In case you're wondering (and I know you are), I made myself a pattern before I got started to know how much yardage to buy. I found this tip on some upholstery website and HIGHLY recommend this step if you're planning to try this. Basically you measure each piece of the couch and make a pattern to scale on a piece of grid paper, then cut them all out and lay them out in 54" width, to see how many yards you need. Make sense? :) It took me all day just for this step, but I would have seriously underestimated how much fabric I needed otherwise.

Hope you like it! Come over some time and have a seat!