Originally it was a pink floral patterned chair with a tear in one arm. I'm guessing it's previous owner hated pink because they'd used fabric spray paint to make it blue...except they didn't get enough paint to cover it thoroughly, so the pink is bleeding through and is fully visible under the seat cushion which they didn't even lift up when painting. It's been sitting in the garage, waiting for me to have the time (and to figure out where we would have the space to put it).
Recently, we got the news that Chris's sister is ready to take her futon back. She made it in high school, and it's been in our living room for the last year. I'll admit it's been nice to have one couch per person, but it's also nice to be back to just one couch because we actually sit together now. So the futon is out, and we moved a chair from the the guest room and the wingback chair into the living room, which also works out because it made room for me to put a desk in the guest room.
Both chairs immediately got covered in sheets. The wingback chair is hideous (the picture doesn't make obvious how bad the color is), and the texture is gross from the fabric paint. There's no way anyone would sit directly on it until it gets new fabric. The other little chair was my grandmother's, and while it's not horribly worn except for some frayed corners, I hated the fabric--it's tan with little purple and rosy flowers on it. It used to have a skirt around the legs too, but I tore that off a couple years ago because I like the look better with the legs showing. Still, it's not really my style, but it went with the guest room because everything in there is from my grandmother. Now that it's in the living room, it needs a change.
I started with the little chair because it was much simpler. For budgeting reasons, I'm limited to super on sale fabric only, so that's definitely reducing design choices, but I really like the fabric I found on clearance at Joann's for the little chair. It turned out pretty classy, and I taught myself to use my sewing machine for the piping in the process.
After finishing this little chair, I worked on making a cushion for the chair in the guest room (aka my office). I didn't take a picture because it's not great. At first glance no one will notice, but it's definitely amateur sewing--though it was great practice for future projects. Three of the four corners aren't bad, but one is pretty wonky.
Due to an order snafu with the wingback chair fabric, I decided to also reupholster the couch. Fabrics.com (my absolute favorite place to buy discount fabric) sent me 11 yards of the super on sale green fabric I ordered for the wingback. It's thick upholstery fabric, though kind of a limey green, which probably accounts for the discount. I only ordered 7 for the chair, but since I got extra, I made the bad decision to reupholster the couch. They sent it in 2 batches, and I dumbly assumed they sent me a double order of 14 yards. I did send them an email before the sent the second batch, letting them know I'd already received my 7 yards and that they hadn't charged me for it, but I never heard back, and then the second batch was shipped. Unfortunately, I didn't get a full order in the second batch.
Here's the couch before (this picture is from a few years ago, when I lived in Grand Junction):
So I started the couch, but I don't really have enough fabric for it, and I can't find more anywhere. My plan is to do the cushions with something else on one side only. I haven't found anything that coordinates with my other fabrics yet that I think will look good on the couch, so I may have to treat my cushions as one-sided cushions and put something on the other side that is okay but that I prefer not to be visible. I'm also considering getting the same fabric in camel (unfortunately not on sale) because I think that might look good, but Chris crinkles his nose at the idea of a two-tone couch.
Here's my couch progress. I haven't done the cushions yet because I have to figure out the second fabric, and I'm practicing sewing zippers right now. The lighting in combination with my phone camera doesn't do justice to how green this sucker is, so here's a picture of the fabric I found on Amazon (I wish I could find more, but this fabric is genuinely unavailable online).
What's funny is that the first thing I planned to upholster is the wingback, and I've only taken off the back and part of one side. The new fabric for it did arrive the other day. I may do the seat in a solid brown to tone down the patterns though.
I've also ordered fabric to reupholster the headboard and footboard of the guest room bed. I hadn't intended to tackle that project. My plan had been to make a new duvet cover that the coordinated with the existing fabric on the bed. The grandmother-provided duvet cover had a tear in it when I got it, which I'd fixed a year or more ago. Recently it re-tore, and I discovered another tear. The fabric of the duvet cover clearly needed retired (and Chris hated it). I went to Target to find sheets that I could sew into a duvet, but I wasn't really liking it, and I found a yellow and gray duvet cover on clearance for $20. I really like yellow and gray, so I couldn't pass that up. Unfortunately, it doesn't match the upholstery on the bed at all, so I've ordered fabric to redo it.
So, after all these projects, it's definitely the summer of upholstering, and it may not be the summer of me finishing my novel. I suppose it's also the summer of librivox.org because I don't want all this upholstering to interfere with my reading goals. I've been working my way through George MacDonald fairy tales. They're fairly entertaining.
