Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » before & after: 2 chairs and a sofa

today’s final before & afters belong to the seating world. our first makeover comes from julia schafer of l+j industries- julia refinished this great mid century chair in a dotted suzanne tick fabric. i used to work with suzanne and knoll textiles and this was one of my favorite patterns- i see it all over brooklyn now used in scraps as part of patchwork bags. those circles are so cheerful. great work, julia!

[have a before & after you'd like to share on d*s? just shoot me an email right here with your images!]

next up- a colorful chair makeover from becky, lea and alexis. i love the thomas paul “parasols” fabric they chose- it reminds me of sunny summer afternoons. if you want to pick up this chair, it’s selling right here on etsy….

CLICK HERE for alice’s sofa makeover after the jump!

this sofa before & after comes from one of my fellow william & mary alumni, alice! alice just graduated and wanted to “learn to do something constructive” so she taught herself how to upholstery! she bought this sofa on craigslist for $70 and redid the whole piece with inexpensive ikea fabric. great work, alice!

Oh my goodness, those all turned out LOVELY, especially the purple chair. Swoon, serious swoon. The couch at the end of the post is awesome… I would never have chosen that fabric myself, but it looks really good.

Amazing fabric choices! I love all three!

Two quick questions: 1) I was thinking of recovering my couch using Ikea fabric but was worried that it wasn’t durable enough. Alice, do you think the fabric would last a year or two of pretty regular use? 2) Could anyone recommend a good guide for how to reupholster a couch? Doing the body seems basic enough (for that I can refer to Grace’s handy headboard guide!), but what I’m really wondering is how to you handle those tricky arms?

just curious… i adore all these upholstery makeovers, but wonder how much it costs, in general, to do this. I realize it depends if you DIY or take it to be done, but can anyone throw out a ballpark? would love to recover a chair…

Nadia: My experience with IKEA fabric is that, for the thicker quality, wear and tear is fine, only the colours tend to fade relatively quickly. So it really depends where you put your furniture (sunlight).

thanks for the compliments on the sofa!

a couple of you asked how i taught myself how to upholster… basically i took the original trim off the sofa and figured out how the original job was done and replicated it. A lot of it (the front and back) was basically the same as stretching a canvas, and the trickier areas i handled via trial and error and google search. I just made sure not to get too worried about if it didn’t work out (hence the inexpensive sofa and fabric- it would have been too scary to play around on an hierloom!) oh and it cost under $200- and most of that was the 10 yards of fabric it took, and trim.

as far as the ikea fabric goes, its a pretty heavy canvas weight and seems like it should be good for a while. without kids or pets straining it and with a ton of scotch guard i think its going to last a while! and of course with the bold fabric i am sure i’ll be ready for a change by the time it starts showing its age. :)

Thank you all for your wonderful comments on the chair. My sister did the upholstery. She learned it from the local community college. When you redo a vintage chair it’s the “Green” thing to do since it is one less chair that may end up in a landfill.

The chair at the top is exactly like one my family had when I was a kid (in the the 60’s-early 70’s.) Of course, ours was new then. There was a solid orange sofa and another armchair that went with the suite….

i am a fan of the after sofa (i LOVE bunting!|) but i actually really liked the before fabric as well – for something that i imagine was quite worn and dated, it didn’t have the look of really “dated” upholstery…

Thanks for all the positive comments about our “Lovely Lucy Chair”. We knew there was a beautiful lady hiding under the faded brown “before” fabric! All the before and afters on this site are always so inspiring for us. Kudos to Julia & Alice. Love your work!

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