Project sofa images...before shots!

Images of the smaller sofa, a removed arm from the larger sofa (with crud from the previous owner...nice!) and a pile of firewood...erm I mean the larger sofa frame!

PROJECT SOFA

Well...after neglecting this blog for a while I'm back again for 2011. Each year I have a wish list of the things I'd like to get for that year. On this years wish list were new sofas for the lounge. Designer Italian style sofas like the ones you see in Elle Decoration magazine....sigh...well I don't exactly have a couple of grand to spend on furniture so I started scribbling some designs in my notebook. Could I make sofas out of some wood and mattresses? would my dad help me? Anyway, after a bit of discusion I decided to "upcycle" two second hand sofas, remodelling the frame and reupholstering. Below is a rough mock up in Photoshop. I picked up two sofas for £45 from Preloved, one large 2 seater and one standard 2 seater. After stripping the larger one (removing upholstery, foam and zillions of staples) we discovered that the frame was pretty poor quality. Luckily my dad is a genious engineer and DIYer and has agreed to make the sofa frames from scratch using better quality wood in his garage. It was still worth £45 buying the two sofas as it was very useful taking them apart to use as a basic template, and of course I will be reusing the foam (as foam is VERY expensive!). My mum has also treated me to 30m of upholstery weight chenille fabric at the bargain price of £1.50 a metre!
This is my first upholstery project (discounting simple drop in seat pads) so watch this space as I document "project sofa"!