Sofa reupholstery. How to choose material and 17 cool ideas for new upholstery

Decorate with pillows

The easiest and most inexpensive way to update a sofa is to complement it with elegant pillows.
For a single-color product, multi-colored pillowcases with various textures, sizes and prints are suitable: fur, knitted, with patterns, round and rectangular. For a sofa with ornaments, it is more appropriate to use single-color pillows that will muffle the activity of the upholstery without overloading it. You can make your own pillowcases by cleaning out your closet and reusing old clothes you don't wear.

Cover with a blanket

Even the most inexpensive sofa will look cozier and more attractive if you cover it with a thick blanket and throw a couple of pillows on top. For convenience, the product can be secured with threads or pins on the back and corners. It is important to choose a suitable fabric – one that is textured and heavy enough so that it does not slip when used.

A universal option is a contrasting one-color fabric without a pattern or to match the textiles of the room.

New life for old furniture: how to update a sofa?

Lifestyle Food

Content

Many of us have old furniture in our apartments, houses and country houses.
Sofas are especially common. And if they can no longer please you with a presentable appearance, the question legitimately arises: how to update an old sofa? Yes, yes, you shouldn’t throw away old things; they often make very beautiful interior elements. It makes sense to renovate if the foundation of the furniture is strong, it does not sag, creak or fall apart. In this case, it is possible and necessary to update the sofa - we only need to work some magic on its appearance.

Add foam rubber

A sagging sofa has several disadvantages:

• unaesthetic, shabby appearance;
• inconvenience when using;
• reducing the cost of the overall appearance of the interior.

If you have removable covers, add high-hardness foam rubber (EL2240 or EL2842) to the main filling to make sitting on the sofa comfortable and the fabric on the cover stretched. This simple and inexpensive upgrade will help give your upholstered furniture a visual upgrade.

If the upholstery is solid, you will have to “tinker” with it, carefully unstitching the material, adding filler and re-fastening the fabric using threads and a furniture stapler.

Required materials and tools

Tools and materials needed to repair upholstered furniture

Restoring an old sofa will take time. This is a creative process that requires desire, tools and good material. Everything needed to repair a standard 180*90 sofa is indicated in the table. It is better to purchase filler and fabric for upholstery with a reserve.

Materials and components for DIY sofa repair

The following tools may be required:

construction adhesive; stapler for furniture; strong nylon thread and a needle for it; spanner wrench, pliers, screwdriver; a jigsaw, or, as a last resort, a regular saw (if chipboard replacement is required).

Variety of tools for furniture repair

Cut the fabric into a cover in advance. It is difficult to sew dense elements, so you can order the production of the material from a seamstress. To avoid mistakes with sizes, use old fabric as a template. When cutting, be sure to leave 5-10 centimeters for fastening, taking into account the height of the seat (width of the back).

Paint

Surprisingly, upholstered furniture can be improved with paint: the main thing is to consult with a specialist in the store and choose the appropriate composition. There are latex upholstery paints that can be applied with a brush and special aerosols. If you strictly follow the instructions, the coating will not crack or get dirty.

If the cover is removable, it can be painted using textile paint, a washing machine and a bit of adventurism.

How to update an old sofa: starting with wooden elements

Old models of this furniture usually have wooden legs, sometimes also armrests - this is if we are talking about an inheritance that was inherited from grandmothers. Such elements need to be painted or varnished - the specific choice depends on the chosen theme and the combination of colors that you want to see. If you are thinking about how to update a sofa at home, then you probably already have a picture of the end result in your head.

Before painting, the surface must be prepared by sanding it first. For this purpose, purchase sandpaper at the store. With larger particles it is suitable for removing the top layer of old varnish, with small particles - for sanding the surface. When everything old is removed, thoroughly clean the material with a barely damp cloth, remove all dust from it and let it dry. The paint is applied in two or three layers, and the varnish too. But be careful: we do not recommend repainting a dark base with light colors. Often, even good paints cannot cover the old dark tone, so strange shades remain in places. To update the wood portions of your sofa, match light colors with light colors and dark colors with dark ones.

Sew a new cover

If you want to implement the idea with your own hands and at minimal cost, you will need skillful hands, several meters of upholstery fabric and a sewing machine. Soft tissues are easier to work with, but have more wear and tear.

When calculating fabric consumption, be sure to take shrinkage into account. You can take a simpler route by ordering a ready-made case from trusted manufacturers.

Universal covers made of stretchy synthetic fabric, which are easy to find on Internet services, rarely look attractive, so they are only suitable as a temporary option. Give preference to wear-resistant and dense fabric to make the sofa look more expensive and last longer.

There are other ways to reupholster your sofa

How to update the upholstery of a sofa at home and at the same time perform a minimum of actions? You can replace a full-fledged upholstery with the selection of a beautiful cover. Specialized stores sell special covers that allow you to cover the entire old sofa along with the legs all the way to the floor. Depending on the style, you can choose a product for any interior: classic, eclectic, country, etc. So, for country, choose light, candy-colored shades. Flowers as a pattern will look great. For a classic interior, you need a richer, more luxurious fabric - with the inclusion of gold and silver threads, a heavy material like that used for curtains.

If someone sews at home, you can make the covers yourself - but do not forget to sew ties that will secure the structure in inconspicuous places. With the help of such a product, it is very easy to update an old sofa. Be careful if you have pets at home - choose elastic fabrics that the claws will not catch on. Many heavy and dense fabrics suffer greatly from the desire of cats to sharpen their claws or from overly active dogs and rodents.

Change components

Place the sofa on legs or replace the old (usually chrome) legs with new wooden ones. You can also paint the legs in a bright or more muted color, sew covers for individual pillows - for example, just on the seat - or add armrests to a laconic product.

Some sofas have a petticoat and do not fit into the modern style - you can remove it, turning the structure into a lighter-looking model. Or vice versa - add decorative elements in the form of buttons, simulating a carriage tie on the back.

What materials to prefer

The most important thing is the reliability of the future sofa, which means that the choice of quality materials comes first. We will need:

• pine timber, the cross-section of which is 30 by 50 mm;
• Fiberboard and chipboard;
• birch plywood (thickness 5 and 15 mm);
• nails, wooden screws and long screws;
• synthetic winterizer (140-170 g/dm);
• foam rubber (thickness 20 and 40 cm, density at least 30 kg/m3);
• batting;
• two types of glue, carpentry and special - for foam rubber;
• foam crumbs and upholstery fabric;
• furniture legs (height 5 cm);
• mechanism for lifting the sofa;
• varnish

You should not save on your upholstered furniture, so to fasten the parts you only need “curly nails”, otherwise the new sofa will begin to delight the owners with sounds very soon. Glue is also required, but before applying it you need to make sure that the furniture is assembled correctly, otherwise you will have to work hard to separate the parts, and it is not a fact that you will come out a winner. Varnish is needed to cover non-laminated boards, otherwise formaldehyde will be released into the air.

Completely restore

Such work will require not only enthusiasm, but also investment of money and effort. To thoroughly update a sofa, you should disassemble it, sand the wooden parts or replace damaged chipboard. The filler needs to be replaced, the moving mechanisms need to be lubricated or new ones installed. The wood must be coated with a protective compound (oil, wax or paint).

To sew new upholstery, we recommend removing the old one and, using it as a template, cutting out new components. With due patience and accuracy, the result will definitely please you.

There are many ways to transform a boring or damaged sofa: use your imagination to create a completely new piece of furniture without much investment.

Sofa reupholstery

Changing sofa upholstery at home

Repairing the upholstery of upholstered furniture at home allows you to save not only money, but also time on its transportation and removal from the floor.
This service eliminates the need to hire transport or movers to transport the sofa to the workshop and back. Five reasons to reupholster your sofa at home:

• saving money - such a service at home will cost less;
• quality guarantee – you can control the entire repair process;
• no risk of breakage or damage that may occur during transportation;
• personal comfort - you calmly go about your business, while craftsmen reupholster the sofa with fabric in the next room;
• convenience - no need to go anywhere and stand in traffic jams, waste gasoline and time on transportation.

By ordering a corner sofa reupholstery at home, you receive a full range of services for repairing and reupholstering upholstered furniture without leaving your home. This service is very convenient for families with small children and people who are constantly busy at work and who simply do not have time to do anything else.

How much does it cost to reupholster a sofa?

You can say exactly how much it costs to reupholster a sofa only after inspecting it. The final budget for such work will depend on the nature of the problem, the design of the furniture and the selected materials for reupholstery.

What does the price depend on:

• furniture sizes – small, medium, large;
• sofa shape – straight, angular;
• folding mechanism – Eurobook, dolphin, roll-out, click-clack, accordion;
• additional services - sewing pillows, buttons, creating piping, stitches with padding polyester.

The cost will also be affected by the need to replace the filler, the volume and complexity of the repair work performed. Reupholstering modern office furniture of the Atlant type will cost much less than restoring a Soviet sofa with a damaged spring block and thinned foam rubber. And repairing children's fabric book sofas will cost less than upholstering kitchen leather sofas with a click-clack folding mechanism.

Upholstery materials

Our experienced private craftsmen will inexpensively reupholster a sofa made of velor, flock and chenille, sew and replace upholstery made of matting, leatherette, jacquard and eco-leather. With us you can choose any option of fabric or leather, order individual tailoring of anti-vandal upholstery, microfiber covering, tapestry, corduroy and tape.

Reviews from people

“I ordered the guys to repair a folding sofa with a complete replacement of the upholstery. They did everything very quickly and cleanly. They offered a lot of fabric options, helped me choose a color, and replaced the foam. Now sleeping on our sofa has become even more comfortable than it was when we first bought it. I recommend."

“These masters were recommended to me by a neighbor on the site. She said that 5 years have passed since their sofa was reupholstered, and it still looks like new. I believed it and was not disappointed, they do it conscientiously - beautifully and efficiently. Very high quality fabric and tailoring - nothing bulges anywhere, no folds, everything is smooth.”

“I give a huge A+ for work, quality and professionalism. We were able to repair our old and very shabby sofa, making it look like new again. If we compare the amount of money we spent on restoration with the cost of new furniture in a nearby store, we saved at least 2-3 times.”