I'm trying to re-upholster my sofa. Help!

:o

I’m not sure if I’m in my right mind much less the right forum, but here goes.

My couch is fallin’ apart, I can’t afford a new one and don’t really want to give up the one I got now, so I’ve got some fabric, and I’m going to try to re-upholster it, but I’ve got some questions here.

  1. Y’all carpenters, upholsterers, experienced craftsfolks, and such like, can you recommend me a good basic book on upholstering sofas?

  2. Is it best to leave the old tattered fabric on the couch and just put the new fabric over it, or should I remove it?

  3. Should I put down new batting over the old batting, and if so what kind of batting should I use? Can I put the batting over the old fabric if I decide to leave it there?

  4. I’m confused about what kinds of staples I should be using. I got a staple gun tacker thing-y, but should I be using the 3/8" x 10 mm staples or the 1/2" x 12mm staples? :confused: What’s the difference between these two types of staples? What’s a good brand of staple gun, or what should I be looking for in a staple gun? I don’t want one of them pneumatic guns because I can’t afford them and I won’t be using them enough to justify spending that kind of $$ on tools. The kind of staple gun I got is a Arrow Model T50. Is that good for someone what don’t know what’s she’s doing?

  5. What else do I need to be thinking about with this project?

  6. What has been your experience with re-upholstering furniture? How long does it take? Does it require a lot of strength? Can just lil ol’ me do this, or does re-upholstering a sofa require two sets of hands?

Thank you for any assistance y’all can give.

They’ll probably move this to another forum, but the question just made me think of my ex-wife, who insisted on redoing a couch one time. I must say it was a total pain in the ass.

Um, is the frame shaky or solid? Are the springs sagging underneath? Makes it a lot more work. And overstuffed is a lot more work than wooden arms–for overstuffed, better to sew a dustcover.

I suspect you could use the T50. You want to relate the length of the staple-legs to the hardness of the wood, so they go all the way in and hold well. Test it with a few of the staples you have now.

But more cool is an upholstery hammer with a magnetic head, with upholstery tacks (don’t get the biggest size, size them to the wood as per the staples). And you probably want a stretcher/gripper thingy to make the fabric taut. What you do with the tacks and hammer, is throw a bunch of tacks in your mouth and then you keep touching the magnetic end to your lips where you are feeding out the next tack with your tongue, and hammering it in. Touch bang touch bang, it goes fast.

But you don’t want to do it with the hiccups.

Damn! Twitchy mouse finger. :frowning:

Was going to suggest that you look for an adult education course in reupholstering – local high school, community college, places like that. Reupholstering is easy enough, but there are a lot of tricks that are easier to learn by being shown instead of having to work them out yourself. On top of that, in a class you can share supplies/tools, instead of buying everything. Unless you plan to do all the rest of your furniture or take it up as a trade or something, you really don’t need to have 4/5ths of a carton of brads left over and so forth.
Anyway, a few answers:

Yes, take off the old tattered fabric. Not only are you likely to be able to feel (or even see) the edges of holes through the new material, but it also helps you: pay attention to the order as you take sections off, use them as rough patterns for your new pieces, and then install the pieces in reverse order to removal.

If the batting is extremely lumpy, or smelly (mildew, smoke, dog whiz), or infested with god knows what, or has chunks missing – basically, if it is bad shape of any kind, take it off. If it’s pretty much intact, just sort of compressed and beaten down by use, you can leave it and put new layer(s) over.

Before you put any time at all into the project: Sit on the couch and bounce up and down a bit: comfortable? seem sturdy? Then turn the item over and take off the dust cloth on the bottom, and take a good look at the springs/coils/strapping. If they aren’t in good shape, pass the job along to a professional. Also, pick up one corner of the couch and try to twist it (as in, warping the couch frame long way, not pivoting around another foot on the ground…) If the frame flexes appreciably, or if creaks a lot or make popping noises or in any way seems flimsy, ditch the idea. Reupholstering is only worth the trouble if you have a structurally sound couch that is of a size/shape that suits you.

You need staples long enough to do hold. As in, hard wood vs. soft? How thick is your fabric/padding layer(s)? Try what you have on hand, and move up or down in size as needed. The brand of staple gun doesn’t matter, so long as it fits your hands and you are strong enough to squeeze it repeatedly.

What else do you need? Tack strips, probably. Welting if you like the look of that. Ornament tacks if you want them for emphasis. Fringes and bullion and tassels and edgings and whatever you want for adornment. The fancier the result you want, the more doodads you need to buy. Oh - you’ll also need a sewing machine to hem the skirt and to make seat cushion covers.
Time it takes: depends on fanciness and your experience. The first thing I did was a loveseat, with self-welting, a box pleated skirt, and a plaid fabric that took careful matching.-- That took about 7 weeks, but only a couple hours each week. (That was my “classroom project” as I took a night course.) Next I did a quick and dirty job on a couch for my sister’s college apartment, where nitpicky perfection didn’t matter. I did that one with no ornamentation, no skirt, leaving the old material & batting, and just wrapping the existing seat cushions in another layer or two of batting. I knocked that one off in a single fairly long day.

BTW, be kind to yourself and pick a forgiving fabric for your first time. That is, either a solid or some small all-over non-directional print. Definitely no stripes/plaids!

Strength needed: well, some staple guns take a lot of hand strength to squeeze. Outside of that, help in shifting the couch around sometimes as you work on it is nice but not necessary. An extra pair of hands to help hold something taut while you nail or staple is nice, but again, not necessary.

Best advice: just take it slowly and work step by step. Upholstery is very forgiving. If you ‘finish’ covering an arm and it looks wrinkly or too loose to you, pull the staples out carefully then stick the piece on again, pulling it tighter that time.

aaslatten, why was it such a pain in the ass?

MaryEFoo, thank you for the advice. I was trying to find upholstery tacks–aren’t they the 3/8’ x10 mm or 1/2" x 12 mm staples becuase that’s what folks at the Walmart send me to when I ask for upholstery tacks? To answer your question, the couch is sound and not rickety at all. I bought it used, and I think the former owner had recovered it herself. It’s been through 11 years of wear and tear, and all that’s wrong with it is that the the staples that hold the fabric on the arms and along one side are coming out, and the seat cushions are tattered. So I’m going to sew up new cushion and pillow covers and just recover the frame. Well, I’m going to try to do this. :slight_smile: Is 11 years too short a time to expect sofa fabric to stay intact?

StarvingButStrong, thank you for such helpful advice. :smiley: I don’t know if I have time to take a course, but I’ll keep that in mind. I figured I’d recruit some friends to help me out with this. That’s why I was wondering if there’s a good, basic book with step-by-step pictures and easy instructions that I could read. Do you know of any? When you refer to “brad,” do you mean the staples, or is this something else? I’m not familiar with upholstery jargon. :slight_smile:

Okay, I’ll take the fabric off. I figured this is what folks would say, and as you say it does provide a guide for me.

I think the batting’s okay, but what kind of batting do you suggest I use in case I decide to put more down? Is there a brand/type that’s easier to use than others?

The couch is sound so no worries there.

What are “tack strips” and “welting?” Will these help ensure that the fabric doesn’t come off? This won’t be a fancy job at all. I just want to cover the couch so that the fabric doesn’t come off of it like it’s doing now.