The sofa has great bones, but the upholstery is an eyesore. Your budget isn’t fabulous enough to pay for the cost of having the sofa recovered — or even for the purchase of a few fantastic upholstery fabric and doing it yourself. Raid your linen closet for a short term way that may turn that frazzled furniture to a cozy showpiece. With one additional step, you can cap your sofa with sheets, then customize the look, and save enough to purchase new sheets for all the beds in the home.
Select heavy, not worn-thin, sheets in good shape and drape them over the sofa to get a feeling of the way the upholstery will appear. You will need two queen-size sheets to pay for a standard sofa.
Pick two plain white or off-white sheets for fabric backing or purchase inexpensive muslin to line with the upholstery sheets. Sheeting is lighter and more fragile than sturdier upholstery grade fabric, so it is going to hold up better if you line it. You will need between 10 to 12 yards of muslin for a sofa, depending on the size and style, or two additional queen-size sheets.
Eliminate the old upholstery in the sofa, labeling each piece as you take it away and setting it apart to use as a blueprint for the new upholstery. Pull basics with the assistance of a flat-head screwdriver or pliers. Be cautious to not leverage your tools against the wood framework and then gouge or dent it.
Take the old cloth off the removable cushions and deconstruct them with a seam ripper to carry on the fabric and the fabric for seams. Eliminate the piping and then take the old cloth off the cording, or just purchase new piping to cover with the new fabric.
Replace the batting or foam, if it is badly compressed or worn, or just smooth it in place.
Lay the old upholstery bits on the wrong side of the sheets and then cut fresh upholstery, leaving about 2 additional inches all the way around for extending and stapling the fabric to the bottom of the sofa. Be sure to permit for matching stripes or patterns, so that the completed sofa will look professional. Cut the exact same size bits in the muslin or lining sheets.
Baste the lining to the incorrect side of the upholstery sheets, utilizing broad stitches on your sewing machine. You’ve created a double thickness of fabric — lined sheeting to utilize as the upholstery. This is the additional step that relaxes your fabric so that it will be more durable.
Staple the brand new upholstery to the sofa — together with the lining underneath and the sheet fabric showing — in the opposite order in how you removed the old upholstery. As you put each piece on the framework or pillows, staple in the front, smoothing over the piece to the rear, extending the cloth under the frame and then stapling it in place. Then staple the exact same way from one side to another.
Tackle corners last, pulling the fabric to symmetrical pleats and stapling it taut. Trim additional fabric to within 1/2 inch of the staples. Eliminate any visible basting threads.
Add a bottom dust cap in a single piece of cambric or another stiff, loosely woven fabric, folded under 1/2 inch all the way round, pressed flat, and stapled to the bottom of the sofa to cover the exposed staples and trimmed cloth.
Cover piping with a contrasting substance. To Insert piping, cut sheet fabric on the bias, fold it in half an hour, wrong-sides together. Tuck the piping cord to the bend, and stitch the cloth close to the cord, leaving the excess cloth untrimmed so you may catch it in the pillow cover seams as you stitch them together.
Assemble any loose pillows last, sewing seams and seams — like any cosmetic piping — on the sewing machine. Plump the cushions, ditch the used old and staples upholstery, and enjoy your free — or nearly free — freshly upholstered sofa.