Recovering a sofa bed / lounge

I did this a while ago but thought it was worth blogging about, if only to inspire someone and perhaps save them $1000s on a new sofa.

I've had this sofa bed for about 15 years ago and it was starting to look a bit shabby.  However it was still reasonably comfortable - let's be honest, what sofa bed is ever really comfortable especially with 2 people in it...but as a lounge, this old girl still has a lot of life left in her and I liked the shape of it. I originally paid around $2000 for the lounge from Oz Designs and it is sturdy and well build so I didn't really want to spend a lot of money replacing it but I was OVER the eucalyptus green damask (especially alongside my beautiful aubergine lounges).

bad shot but I forgot to take before photos

Then I had the brilliant idea of recovering it myself.  I measured it all and managed to buy pretty much the exact amount of material I needed (I had just enough left over to recover my dining room chair seat pads).  I think it was around 4m. I bought a marco-suede as it's great for keeping clean especially with kids, dog and an active outdoor life.  I think the colour was ecru.

.....so $340 and 10 hours later here's my new sofa bed. While I was recovering the cushions I changed their shape. The back and side cushions had little wing tips which I no longer wanted so I used an old electric carving knife to reshape them. The bottom cushions that you sit on are foam and feather and I used to be forever replumping them and they used to hang over the edge of the lounge a bit so I made the new cushion covers a little smaller and now they sit much more firmly and I never have to plump them.

from the back

For the main part of the sofa - I decided to not use a slip cover as I wanted it to sit neatly and with the macrosuede there is no need to wash it as sponging with work perfectly. So I staple gunned the material to the frame and pushed it into the crevices/seams with a butter knife. 

For the arms I drew a template of the actual sofa bed rather than the old slip cover and then using upholstery thread and my trusty sewing machine, I sewed the shape then pulled it tight to ensure a good fit.

This was probably the hardest part - making sure these arms sat nicely.  It wasn't that difficult to do though as I just carefully measured the length of the arm on the side to ensure that the material didn't bunch.

I saved some money by reusing the zippers from the old cushion covers. I always use the hidden zipper method to make it look nicer and sit flat.

And here's the finished product - although with over a year of wear and tear on it since it's transformation.

And now here's the funny part:   In my usual fashion, I did this whole project the night before my daughter's birthday party and while I was also making this cake.  I wonder why I do this to myself.

At least I work well under pressure!
Fiona xx