Tuft luck.

Last Summer while we were waiting for our house to close, I had this great idea that I should reupholster our couch and loveseat. Hahahahahahaha! Ha.

These little lovelies were a Craigslist find back in 2010. It was love at first sight. I love the style of them (I secretly love the awesomely hideous upholstery) and they're in good shape, but the skirt wasn't doing anyone any favors (unfortunately the print wasn't either...) and the upholstery was faded and falling apart. I searched the interwebs and found TONS of different tutorials online for tufted sofas, but unfortunately none of them were for couches quite like these... The backs of the cushions are literally sewn onto the piece of fabric that is on the back of the couch. It's complicated. But, I figured that if all else failed, I could always buy another set of couches off of Craigslist.

So after convincing David that I knew what I was doing and a considerable amount of time picking out fabric, I began:

Now, I don't remember the entire process, so this isn't a complete tutorial. I checked several blogs before I started and I don't remember any of them right now. I started with the loveseat, since it was smaller. As soon as I had it disassembled, I had a break down. I lost all hope and told David we should just buy new couches. He told me to go to sleep and that I'd feel better in the morning, which just pissed me off even more. I mean, I did feel better in the morning, but still.

The tufting was the worst part (my thumbs were totally blistered), and I've had to redo the tufting several times because Vader used to think it was fun to eat the buttons off of the couch.... grrrr... (fortunately we've beat it out of him he's grown out of it). But after it was all said and done, it wasn't too bad. I wouldn't necessarily want to reupholster something again this Summer, but you know, maybe someday.

By the way, we bought the fabric from Home Fabrics, which is an amazing discount fabric chain store and since we signed up online to join their email list, we got coupons for 20% off of our entire purchase. We ended up spending around $145.00 on the upholstery fabric (I believe it was $8.99 per yard and I think we got around 20 yards) and the accent fabric that I used to recover the buttons. And we probably spent $40 on upholstery grade staples and a staple gun (and we needed wood joiners and stain for the wooden pieces attached to the edges of the couches). That plus the original cost of the couches ($75) makes the total cost of the couches we love so much $260. Not too shabby.

Side note about the cushions: I didn't re-cover the cushions because I was tired of working on the couches, but also, I thought the original cushions were a nice tribute to the ugly old fabric that I loved so much. It almost seemed kinda shabby chic. We have tons of leftover fabric, so I've gone back and forth about just doing the cushions (approximately every week and a half). David thinks they would look too plain if we just covered them in the same material that we used for the couches and has suggested either tufting the cushions (NEVER AGAIN) or doing a piping outline using the fabric that we used to cover the buttons. But what do you think? Should I re-cover the cushions or leave them as is? And if I should do the cushions, should I leave them plain, or decorate them as David suggests, or should I do something completely different, like use a different fabric for them?