Thu 25th, Jul, 2013 Hey Beach Cottage ladies who like a bit of furniture re-arranging and decorating! Well you post a pic of a white sofa makeover…basically a sofa covered with painter’s drop cloths in your old cottage and you get rather a few emails about quite how you did it without just laying a throw over the sofa and without sewing. Soooo, I have put together what I have learnt about covering sofas…yes ladies in my world I will hold my hands up, I will admit it, I will take it on the forty-is-the-new-thirty chin and disclose that I have spent an inordinate amount of time in my little life googling ‘how to lose your husband so you can buy new linen sofas. ‘how to buy new sofas and get them in the house without your husband noticing’ ‘how to make sofa covers from painter’s drop cloths’ ‘how to disguise new linen sofas as pre-loved from Ebay & scored for $100′ ‘give your sofa a new look’ ‘how to feed your kids baked beans 20 different ways so you can buy new sofas’
So, put it this way, I have mused this sofa-covering conundrum quite a bit…there were a few things to think about it too, I mean why not just get some covers made right? But with new sofas somewhere in the future I didn’t want to put anything much into covering these… So the requirements were : oooh now this is looking a bit trickier, no sewing, investment or effort…hmm life doesn’t tend to work like that… The more I researched and googled the more I came across painter’s drop cloths and the more I thought this could be the solution – relatively cheap, hardwearing, not too slippery, a bit like linen, the correct colour…you name it, these babies were checking about every box… 1. buy the biggest drop cloths you can find and then cut them up, you get more bang for your buck this way 2. take all the cushions that you can off of the sofa (unfortunately mine only has back cushions that are, thank goodness, removable) 3. lay your drop cloth over the sofa seat area only and roughly estimate what’s the best way to cut the drop cloth fabric to best fit the seat area of the sofa double folded and with a big enough overhang to tuck and fold into the crevices of the sofa
- so for example with the drop cloth I had I simply folded it down the middle and cut it in half giving me two pieces of double folded fabric - you want the fabric double folded because a single piece of fabric will slip around much more (ask me how I know this or ask a Beach Cottage kiddo if they sat on a sofa with a single piece of drop cloth and promptly the whole lot slid to the floor) - the amount of fabric you have to tuck in is key to it not slipping and sliding around when you actually want to sit on the thing and watch Midsomer Murders not just take photos of it for your blog. 4. cut your fabric – don’t worry about edging you won’t see that 5. fold your drop cloth piece so it is double folded, lay it on a table or floor and smooth it out and line up the edges…trust me do this bit 6. lay this piece of fabric over the seat of the sofa, smooth, smooth, smooth 7. push and tuck, push and tuck- all the over-hang fabric needs to be squeezed tighly into the crevices of the sofa (it’s much easier if you have seat cushions as I have in the other room) – this tight pushing and squeezing is what will stop the ‘cover’ slipping around and falling off when you sit on it
8. lay the other piece of fabric out and put the cushions on it, now wrap up the cushions like a parcel, leaving the bottom of the cushions with the opening of the fabric 9. place cushions on the sofa and then put your hands underneath and again squeeze and push the excess fabric in tightly so the fabric won’t move around too much when you sit down 10. add texture to the arms of the sofa with crochet, knit or stripe, smooth and tuck this tightly into the sofa too 11. add lots of pillows and cushions in different shapes and patterns for interest and depth. That’s it, I now have sofas I am a little bit more happy with and it almost feels like we have a new room… p.s. a few peeps wanted to know where the pom pom throw is from – I got it in Aldi last year :-) *no husbands were harmed in the making of this blog postMade of superior fabrics including Belgian linen and 100% cotton velvet. With a passion for innovation, we design and make superior collections of luxury outdoor furniture using only the finest quality materials, finished to the highest specifications and focusing on every detail.
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