Couch Fix

Guys, I did the greatest thing. To explain let me start by telling you about my couch. I've had it for quite a few years and before that it was my Mom's. She gave it to us when she got a new one. It's super comfy and we especially like that if you take the back cushions off a person can very comfortably sleep there. It's not necessarily my favourite pattern but I didn't have to pay for it so it was perfect.

Only over the years the cushions have really started to look slouchy, especially the love seat. There was obviously a problem there as it had grown in width and shrunk in height. 

I didn't take before pictures so I went through and found these ones from when we lived in Lethbridge but that was 3 years ago. You can imagine how much worse they've gotten. 

Notice how you can see the back of the couch above the cushion? It's irritating and not the most comfortable. I didn't think anything could be done about it though so we dealt with it. 

Flash forward and I've started to upholster furniture. I currently have the ugliest duckling of couches in my garage just waiting to be made a swan. While I'm waiting for fabric I've been researching. I plan on adding buttons to the cushion but I didn't know how to do that so I searched and found this amazing post about how a woman took her slouchy, old cushions (just like mine) and added buttons. It looked brand new! 

My couch has arm rest covers but they ALWAYS ended up on the floor so years ago I put them away. I pulled one out and was shocked at how much cleaner it was than my couch so I took all the covers off and washed them with bleach. Once that was done I cut up the armrest cover to make covered buttons. Then I used this easy video tutorial to tie on my buttons. There are buttons on the back too so the cushions are still double sided. My love seat cushion had some tearing so I added some batting and did a little mending but nothing major. 

I can't believe the change! (After this picture I took the buttons off and moved them out wider, you'll see the difference later but this shows the throw pillows well)

That left just one last irritation. The throw pillows on this couch are huge, see on the above picture? They barely fit on the couch and fall off really easy because they're so wide. They are so tall that they sort of bend in the middle and they are constantly in the way so they get put on the floor all the time. To fix them I unpicked two sides of the covers, leaving the other two as is, and washed them. I took the pillow forms (just some bunched up batting now) and cut 4 inches off two sides. Then I wrapped it in a new layer of batting. I cut 4 inches off the covers and sewed them back up inserting my updated batting. They're more full and still useful but not in the way anymore.

It's such a huge change. After someone has been sitting for some time and they get up the cushions stay just like that. It's amazing.

Some before and afters.  

It sort of feels like a brand new couch and I started and finished it in one day.