Last week, I mentioned a great friend was coming over to help me reupholster the rv sleeper sofa frame. Well she’s not a great friend… …
Last week, I mentioned a great friend was coming over to help me reupholster the rv sleeper sofa frame.
Well she’s not a great friend…
She’s a saint.
(If you could of seen me around 12:30 when I was hungry you would agree….A SAINT.)
Not only is she a saint but she is also one of the kindest, most creative, and thoughtful people I know. She got to my house at 10:00 am and left at 9:30 pm. That’s 11.5 hours (for those who are mathematically challenged like myself.)! ELEVEN and a HALF hours!
This is the rv sofa before. We thought about getting an entirely new sofa but not only was it expensive, it was hard to find one to efficiently fill the space. We didn’t want to waste any space and we wanted to keep the sofa bed for the future when the boys want to bring along friends. I scoured Craigslist but nothing the right size with a bed was coming up and most of the sofas on Craigslist didn’t fit our style.
What to do….
We decided the most cost effective solution was to pay someone to reupholster the cushions (I can sew very simple things like pillows but cushions with piping and zippers are waaay out of my league.) and we would reupholster the frame.
I found someone to recover the cushions with buttons, piping, and zippers for $40 a cushion (and it only took him a day and a half!). I have no idea what it costs in other parts of the country but for southern California this was a steal. I know because I called, visited, or emailed pictures to nearly every upholstery shop in our area. He did an exceptional job and I couldn’t have been more pleased. If you are in the area the shop is Robert’s Upholstery and the number is 805-659-5600.
So I made two treks down to the LA fabric district and got some gorgeous wool fabric in the exact color we wanted for $2.99 a yard. The problem was the fabric had a pattern every 3 or so feet and they only had 14 yards. I bought it anyway because those are the type of irrational things I do assuming we could make it work. As it turned out the fabric made us work.
This was around noon when I hungry and cranky nearly gave up and called Robert to ask him the cost to recover the sofa frame. It was going to be more than we wanted to put into the sofa so we persevered into the dark.
See the southwest pattern? Grrrrrrr! After Robert had used 8 of my 14 yards for the cushions we only had 6 yards left. Take out the pattern and it was less. (See my math is improving as I write this post.)
Still working into the night.
Is this still a sofa?
If you ever decide to reupholster a sofa frame, do one side first. I don’t know what we would have done if we had not left one side intact. I took pictures and notes of taking it apart to have for references but I might as well been looking at Monet painting from 2 inches away at 3 o’clock am. They made no sense. Being able to look at the original side was a sanity saver.
Almost done. We still had not screwed the frame back together and the cushions are sitting on boxes which is why the cushions look like they need Botox but you get the idea. The couch itself is ordinary so to add some character I decided to add buttons like this ridiculously overpriced settee from Anthropologie. All in all, with fabric and labor (not counting our own) it cost about $200 to reupholster the sofa.
So if you ever want to reupholster your own rv sofa frame, here are some tips.
1. Make sure you have enough fabric. A total no brainer and it worked out okay only because this is an rv sofa and 3 of the 4 sides are hidden.
2. Give yourself plenty of time especially is you don’t follow number 1. Had we had enough fabric it wouldn’t have taken near as long.
3. Do one side first so you can look back at how it was put together. Also take notes of the pieces and the order you take them off.
4. Have the right tools. I don’t know what the “proper” tools are but here are the tools we used: staple lifter, hammer, pry bar, electric staple gun, needle nose pliers, screw driver, and scissors. We owned all of them except the staple lifter and the electric staple gun which I borrowed from a friend.
5. Find a saint to help you out. Most important!
By shopping around for fabric and reupholstering the sofa frame ourself we saved about $300 since the least expensive place cost $500 to reupholster the entire sofa. More important than saving money, I have a new fun (now) memory saved in my heart. Thank you, Diane.
We are thisclose to being done with the interior! Brent is finishing the floor this weekend and I have to do the curtains but those are the last major things to do. I can’t wait to show you pictures!
love and laughter,
jenn