You can't Beat Comfortable

When I pick out furniture I am often torn between comfortable (or practical) and beautiful.  Even while I peruse my monthly Elle Decor I often see a picture of a chair or sofa and wonder about how it sits.  Is it comfy, stiff, do the owners ever actually USE the furniture?  When I bought our sofa 4 years ago a few points were considered.  We had a hand me down sectional that we were passing on to another family and I wanted something very different.  The sectional was very stiff and contemporary looking.  Not my personal style at all.  Don't get me wrong, I was very grateful for it, but once we were able to afford buy one of our own, we jumped at the chance.  We lived in an apartment at the time and this sectional was waaay too big for it.

Manufacturers Stock Photo

At that time, one of the furniture stores I had worked at was going out of business.  Of course I knew (and was close to) many of the salespeople there so I was able to fanagle a floor model of a lovely sofa for almost cost.  It's been a few years but I think I got for about $350.  It retailed for $600 to $700.  Awesome, right?  I am not a huge fan of pillowbacks but I loved everything else about it.  The length, 96", the fabric, a burgundy and gold paisley, the style, traditional, the bun feet, and dual seat cushions and it was sooo comfortable!  This was a couch someone could spend the night on!  Perfect for naps or snuggling up with a bowl of popcorn and a great horror flick.  The couch was in perfect condition except where there should have been four large back pillows there were only three.  No problem I thought.  I'll just take a quick trip over to HomeGoods and pick up a substitute back pillow that will blend.  And I did.  I got a gold chenille 24" x 24" pillow for $20.  The only thing I didn't like is that the original pillows had fringe and the adopted pillow did not.  I solved that with usually keeping a throw over the odd pillow.

See that cat there on the left?  That's Bella.  My sweet angel kitty.  She LOVES the gold pillow.  If she isn't on the arm, she's laying on the chenille pillow.  She loves it so much this is what she did to it:

 
So it was time to do something about the pillow.  Or maybe the couch altogether.  I made my way over to Bed, Bath and Beyond and was seriously considering a slipcover.  I had a slipcovered sofa years ago and really didn't like it.  I had made the slipcover myself out of painters dropcloth and the sewing job was horrible.  It seemed the slipcover never stayed tucked in and because the fabric was a light color, it stained easily.  So I decided against the slipcover.  I skipped on over to Joann's (well, I didn't really skip.  I drove my truck 2 parking lots over) and ended up in the upholstery fabric section.  Right off I found a gorgeous fabric that I loooved.  It was a similar color to the existing gold chenille but it had a lovely medallion motif.



And it was on sale.  I only needed about 1 1/2 yards but the price was so awesome I bought 2 yards.  Seriously awesome price:


Um, yeah.  Did you notice the "Regular Price"???

Oh yeah!  I will be the first to admit, I am not a sewer.  I don't even know if that is the correct term for someone who is proficient with a sewing machine.  Whatever that term is, it does not apply to me.  At all.  Whatsoever.  I have a sewing machine.  A pretty nice one in my opinion.  And I know how to use its basic functions.  But that is it.  And sewing squares together is about the easiest thing there is, right?  So the pillows were not a challege to make.

I sewed the pillows and reused the polyfill from the old pillows.

Whaddaya think?  I love the way the pillows turned out.  And I got custom fabric that I adore for less than what I would have paid for two ready made pillows at HomeGoods.  What could be better?

I'm thinking of eventually either getting a new sofa or slipcovering this one in a solid color.  Right now though, solids scare me.  I have a 4 (almost 5) year old and a just turned one year old.  And paisley hides almost everything!  I might give it another year or two =)

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