A New Piece of Furniture

Sometime in 1972, my parents decided to go all out and buy a nice new couch.  I'm sure it was a big deal because I know how hard it is to own new furniture of any kind as a new married couple.  Heck...even thirteen years in, we don't have much in the way of new furniture. When we moved to Cincinnati, we treated ourselves to nice new bedroom furniture.  After Lawrence was born, we got a set of new bunk beds.  Don't get me wrong--I am extremely grateful for our hodge-podge of furnishings and like them very much.    I have often wondered what the 'magic age' is where you have matching furniture and accessories throughout your house.  And it is nice to have moved up in the world from sleeping on a sofa bed sleeper (as I did when I first moved out of my parents' home) to the really nice bedroom furniture we bought.  And it probably makes me appreciate the nice furniture so much more because I have not always had it.

So fast-forward from 1972 to 1986 (I think) and my parents got the couch reupholstered.  The couch came to me from my parents' home sometime after Phillip and I got married.  We brought it with us when we moved, because we both like it very much.  The Couch from 1972 has been looking rather sad of late.  The cushions began to get holes worn in them, so at some point I turned the cushions upside down to hide the holes.  Then the other side got worn out, and I had to turn the cushions zipper-side-out because the foam was getting pulled out of the other side.  We've been zipper-side-out for about a year or so.

Yikes!  The time had come.  The time to either buy another couch or reupholster.

In the end, we decided on re-upholstery because it's really hard to find a couch that fits our family.  It seems that the fattening up of Americans has created the need for enormous, puffy-cushioned furniture that makes me feel like a toddler with my legs dangling off.  It's hard to get on and off of furniture like that and it looks really crappy really quickly because all that poof in the cushions doesn't last very long with heavy use.  And we use the hell out of our furniture!

Step one was getting the fabric.  I wanted to spare no expense on that part because I wanted something that will 'wear like iron' as my Granny liked to say.  I was totally lost and this was the part that made me the most nervous.  If I pick a stinker, I'm stuck with it for another 25 years.  Thankfully my Mom is quite talented in the area of fabric quality and colour.  When we went to Mobile for Christmas, Mom took me around and helped me pick something out.  All I can say is thank goodness she could help me.  She steered me toward a fabric and colour that was absolutely perfect!  I'm so glad I didn't follow my crappy instincts and buy the old lady fabric I originally looked at.  It was funny because we changed rooms for our Wednesday night Bible study at church after Christmas and in the new room was a chair with the very same fabric I wanted at first.  It looks like it belongs in the house of an elderly couple.

Step two was finding a good upholsterer.  It was very fortuitous that a few of my local Facebook friends spoke up after I posted my January resolutions.  I found a great guy whose shop is a couple of blocks away from my house!

I had him do an estimate, and it gave me heart palpitations for the rest of the day.  I mean I was expecting it to be pretty expensive, but holey moley!  And yes, we know we could have bought a new couch for the price he quoted, but they just don't build furniture like they used to.  Our couch is made of real wood, metal springs and our hide-a-bed mechanism works smoothly and structurally our 1970's era couch was still in pretty decent shape.  You don't get furniture anymore that isn't made at least partly of particle board or crappily put together.  This couch has withstood forty years of kids, dogs, cats, and all sorts of abuse.  So it was a keeper.  I am super thankful for Mom's help because the upholsterer said the fabric I had was excellent quality.  He asked how much I paid for it and I told him I paid $10 per yard.  He was amazed that I got such nice fabric for such a great price.  He said that if I had gotten the fabric through him, I would have paid about $30-$35 per yard.  Yikes!  I bought seventeen yards, so I really saved a bundle getting my own fabric!  Thanks Mom!

After a few days, I made peace with the upholstering price and got excited about it.  He picked up the couch and dropped off this gorgeous piece of furniture six days later.  Here are some before and after photos:

You can see my zipper-side-out cushions which hides all the holes here.

I could not love it more!  Phillip loved the fabric and it looks just like us.  Fits in with our hodge-podge house very nicely!  The guy rebuilt the spring stuff in the back and a couple of other things.  It's exactly like having a brand new couch!  I have fabric left over and am debating whether to get the guy to cover the cushion on my rocking chair glider and get me new foam.  Keeping in mind the condition of the cushions of the couch beforehand, I asked the guy to make me a cover to go over the sitting cushions to keep them safe for a while. I am also keeping my eyes open for a cute 1970's style lampshade that will go with my 1970's lamp right there.