Reupholstering and Painting a Couch

I've been trying to get a new job in the city where my boyfriend lives.  For four months I have been trying.  It's frustrating, and has reduced me to tears and murky moods several times.  So to keep my spirits up I have fully planned the decoration of the apartment I want and even bought a couch.

Really.  I need help.  Who buys a couch BEFORE moving?

I do.  It was a Craigslist couch that was only $25, and I figured I could make it pretty for pretty cheap.

Well I made it pretty... got that one down...

I saw a whole bunch of pins on Pinterest about painting couches, but I didn't want to paint the cushions, just in case.  So I decided to do half and half, I would paint the base of the couch and sew new cushion fabric for the cushions.

I measured the cushions and did the math to come up with 11 yards of fabric, which ended up being the perfect amount.  At $6 a yard it was $66.  I had some cording that I was going to use for a corded petticoat...but I used for this project instead.  I also had to buy 6 zippers, which cost me $23 at Joanns, and that was using a 25% off entire purchase coupon.

I then took a 2" piece of fabric to Home Depot where they color matched the fabric.  I got the cheapest paint available, at $20 a gallon.  The employee (after I explained what I was using it for) told me to buy 1/2 a gallon, which was $10.  Unfortunately it was not enough, and I went back later to buy a gallon.  I spent $30 overall on the paint.

To make the paint so it isn't all hard and scratchy, I added fabric medium in a 1:1 ratio of medium to paint.  I bought 11 bottles, at $5 each.

After slopping the paint all over the base of the couch and letting it dry, I was quite irritated.  $55 of fabric medium and my fabric was scratchy!  Fortunately I ran across this blog.  She sands her couch after the painting process.  YUP.  Like sand paper, sand.

My father has every tool known to man, so I grabbed his handy electric sander and went to town.  The fabric is still a bit tough, like waterproof outdoor furniture fabric, but much, much better.

Then it was time for the cushions!  This is the couch, a new version of the couch, not the couch I bought:

As you can see the cushions along the top were rather oddly shaped.  The left and right cushions are mirror images of each other, and kind of lean outwards, while the middle cushion is pretty normally shaped.  The bottom pillows were pretty straight forward.  I pulled part the top middle, one of the top sides, and one of the bottom pillows so I could use them as patterns.  The other pillows I kept together so I could use them as "instructions".  I knew I was going to probably forget how the pieces went back together.

Here are the pillows before I ripped them apart.  Slightly worn, stained, and a tiny bit stinky.

Here is the first pillow I finished.  The zipper area took me a few minutes to wrap my head around, but finally I figured out how it went back together.

And the finished product!

In hindsight I probably should have just bought a new couch because I spent so much money making this one pretty, but now I have a beautiful new couch!

Final details:
Total $: 199
Total Time: 54 hours