Upcycled and Renewed – Second Life For the Couch

Grumpy didn’t begin to describe how I was coming to feel about our 15 year old couch.  My parents still have the couch they were gifted when they married and even more, the couches that were my grandparents.   Yup, re-upolstered, but still have them.  So when I looked at our couch, only 15 years old, piping beginning to show, fabric beginning to fray and the corners much maligned by our dear (grumble) cat, I didn’t like it.

Every morning when I wake up before the rest of the household to meander downstairs and enjoy my first cup of coffee to silence and the dark morning sky dawning to light, I sit right across from this couch.  I was grumpy.  Grumpy that the couch looked like this.  Grumpy that ‘things just aren’t made like they used to be.’  Grumpy that a new couch is $1,000 or more.

Then one morning, a glimmer of a different attitude that is so much more in keeping with my positive self emerged.  I like handmade things.  I like upcycled, recycled, repaired and repurposed things.  Why was I focusing on the things that I didn’t like instead of what I do like?

And so a new couch was born.  One that makes me happy every time I look at it.  Same couch.  Different attitude and much more like it, thank you very much!

This is what I did:

From our local Salvation Army, I found a wool coat in a color that I thought would go with our couch.

I then made a pattern for the arm rest out of newspaper.

Cut out the wool fabric.

Sewed it on by hand with a hidden stitch.  And the best news of all is that the cat doesn’t want to scratch on these repairs!

Annie
Back to happy again