and I’ll take the couch please. great to see an Ikea fabric put to inventive use.

Where do you find these amazing pieces? Really beautiful…

GASP-A-RONI!!!!! I AM IN LOOOOOOOOOVE with this couch!!!! oh it makes me wanna cry I love it so much!!! :/

GASP-A-RONI!!!! I AM IN LOOOOOVE WITH THIS SOFA! Ohhhhh I love it so much it makes me wanna cry! :(

love love love the first chair. want.

This is a total newbie question, but are these pieces professionally reupholstered?
If not, how does one learn to upholster like this? I’ve got a thrifted chair that I’d love to make over ….

ROXY, I almost cried too! Except over the chairs! Wow, I love them.

Way to go girls, love the chairs! The choice of fabrics and colors… dynamic!

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.

seriously love the purple fabric on that first chair. I think it’s my favorite furniture before and after on this site ever!

The chairs look amazing.

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?

I vote for alice’s wild and crazy black and white sofa! Awesome!

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…

I adore the lines of that first chair. I’ve had the urge to recover a few of my chairs, and this post is so encouraging!

alice’s sofa is the most striking to me — awesome!

Love, love, love the first 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).

i think we would all love to know how alice taught herself. i have gone to a professional and it gets costly! it would be great to be able to do it myself.
peace

Really like how the sofa fabric isn’t matched… great look!

The sofa is a bit, unusual-looking to me, but if the owner likes it, that’s great. I like the middle chair and am absolutely smitten with the first one! Great job, everyone!

Man! That fabric on the first chair really compliments the lines. Nice, nice. I love it!

Great job on all three. They look fab.

Love the purple polka dotted chair!

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. :)

I’m so jelaous of the creativity and talent here! I have a million year old gold slipper chair that is in dire need of tlc. really wish I had this kind of talent to recover it.

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 love before & after’s! so fun. i especially love the fabric on the second chair, so cute & cheery. :)

Oh I LOVE that navy chair! Also love the fabric of chair #2! Great work ladies!

I love all three pieces! So nice to see beauties like that recovered and given new life! Great work done by all.

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…

Loving all three pieces, I so desperately want to start doing some myself ~ thanks for the inspiration :)

Wow! The chair in the first picture is amazing. I love the lines and the fabric. Love it!

Great job on the sofa. Love the covering. Just goes to show anyone can get good at upholstery.

Tom

I love the top chair with the purple, pretty!

I do love the “after” of the second chair, but there is something so beautifully messy about it’s “before”. kudos.

i will take any of the above chairs/sofa. I used to sew, but haven’t done so since my son was born 25 years ago! so impressed with your talent – both of you are amazing.

Very nice! These remind me of the chairs I refurbished by myself.
You can see my before and after on Everyday Artists Studio here: http://bit.ly/RLE4S

I have to admit I’m not a fan of the sofa, that fabric just doesn’t work with the style of the sofa for me. Otherwise I love the other results.

o. m. G. I do love these features!! Most folks would have tossed out the “before” items … but look at their FABulous 2nd lives!! Great, GREAT job!!

Such beautiful work. I’m at the beginning of a sofa project, and it’s great to see some inspiring pieces.

PS: Tribe Pride! Hark upon the gale!

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!

You all did a GREAT JOB!

Question: How hard is it to reupholster the piping? And how do you put it back on the chair, cushions, etc.? Thanks!

i hate to say this but i think the sofa was better before…

Ana – send us an email and we can send you some pictures that show how to attach the welt (threesidewaysglances@gmail.com).

i agree with you, liz

teehee, i just made myself a skirt out of the IKEA fabric (from the sofa)! I love it! The sofa looks great as well. I could imagine myself in my skirt on that very sofa :D

Seriously! that first chair is amazing! (the others are great too, but i’m partial to purple.) when i grow up, I want to reupholster furniture. :)

LOVE your before and after shots!!! Thank you for the inspiration.