Several years ago I brought home an orange sofa from an estate sale. Yes, it was orange and aesthetically dated in a way that didn't fit my style, but it's condition was pristine and it was only $30! I was so drawn to it's curves and lovely tufting that I was able to look past the Brady Bunch orange upholstery. I remember my husband giving me a funny look when he helped me unload it from the truck, but he didn't question my intentions. He rarely does. He knows better.
Our master bedroom is fairly large and I was hoping to create a pretty little sitting area. The sofa was the perfect size, but obviously the wrong color. I immediately covered it with a beautiful quilt, threw some pretty pillows on it and vowed to save my pennies to have it reupholstered one day. Well, we all know how expensive upholstery work can be. And it seems like after having children, your priorities get shifted and suddenly spending hundreds of dollars to reupholster a $30 sofa that no one ever sits on seems frivolous and unnecessary.
If you've been following along with me here, you know that I have been working on making some updates to our bedroom. I painted a new dresser for my husband and re-painted my old dresser for a completely new look. With the pretty new updates happening in the room, the quilt covered sofa just wasn't working for me anymore. I had been contemplating the idea of painting it with Chalk Paint® Decorative Paint by Annie Sloan ever since I saw other bloggers painting their own upholstered furniture. My biggest concern was that the sofa would soak up several cans of paint and even though I would be spending considerably less than I would to have it reupholstered, I still was ready to spend over $100 making my $30 sofa look more presentable. Recently, Debbie Hayes of Annie Sloan Unfolded painted and stenciled a sofa that appeared to be comparable in size to mine. In her blog post, she stated that she was able to paint the entire sofa with just a half can of Chalk Paint®! That was all I needed to hear! A few days later, I pulled that quilt off of my orange sofa and started painting. I created a custom lavender color by mixing Paloma and Old White. Within a matter of hours the orange sofa was no more. I estimate that my sofa took closer to one whole can of paint, but it was still a much more cost efficient makeover than what I had originally anticipated.
This little sofa had been covered up with a quilt for so long that I had forgotten what a cute shape it had and how lovely the tufting was! The Paloma/Old White mix created the most perfect shade of lavender for our room. It's exactly the color of fabric I had envisioned the sofa being reupholstered in one day.
I know exactly what you're wondering when you look at this upholstery paint transformation...what does the fabric feel like? Is it crunchy? Well yes, it is a little crunchy...and I know I could apply Annie's clear wax and probably get a softer feel, but honestly no one ever actually sits on this sofa. We lay our clothes out on it, and that's about it. I was happy with how it turned out, so I decided to save my wax for another project.
Once it was painted in the most perfect shade of lavender, the little sofa needed a few more accessories to make it extra beautiful! I tried to be open minded when shopping for throw pillows. I knew I wanted to add some accent colors but I wasn't sure exactly what they would be. I am trying to go for a "collected" cottage look in our room. I fell in love with this little sequined, ruffled pillow at HomeGoods but it wasn't the pop of color I was looking for, luckily on the next aisle over was the satin patchwork pillow that had a lot of lovely soft colors on it to pull from. I carried it around to a few different stores and eventually found the blanket in the perfect shade of blue to work with the pillow and accent the sofa.
The other accessory the little sofa just had to have were some new legs. As you can see in the before photo, the original legs gave the sofa sort of a mid-century modern look.
Switching them out for some curvy Queen Anne style legs really helped achieve the vintage cottage feel I was hoping for. I purchased the legs online from Van Dyke's Restorer's. They were on sale and I ended up paying just $20 for four legs after all was said and done. I chose to stain them with a dark stain I had left over from another project. I felt like I needed a little bit of wood grain in this corner of the room in contrast with all of the painted pieces. Special thanks to my sweet husband for his help in replacing the sofa legs! I don't want to down-play his efforts, but it seemed like an easy straight-forward project, in case you were wondering.
The tiered end table is a piece that a friend of mine had for sale in her booth at Camas Antiques! I originally purchased it hoping to use it as a nightstand in our room but it ended up being a bit too small. I decided to try it out in the corner of the room next to the sofa, and as it turns out I think it's perfect there!
Michelle painted this lovely table in Old White, distressed it just right and finished it off with clear and dark wax. I love it, Michelle!
While I'm sharing in this corner of our room, I'll tell you a little bit about the new curtains I just put up. Before, we had hand-me-down lace panels. I liked them okay for several years but you know how it is when you change one thing in a room..it quickly leads to more changes! I decided I wanted a more finished look with sheers and panels but I didn't have hundreds of dollars to spend, so I headed to Ikea!
I liked the color, texture and the price of the Lenda curtain panels, but didn't much care for the tab top. I thought I would do an alteration of some sort when I got around to it. When I layed the panels out on the ironing board I realized that I could easily cut a little slit at the top of the curtain where it's folded over, just at the hem and feed the rod right through it. I just tucked the tabs back behind once the curtains were hung in place. It feels a little like cheating, but it works for me! These have been up in our room for a few weeks now and I am really happy with them!
This corner of our room is now prettier than I had imagined it could be, thanks to a few easy projects, a can of paint and some special accessories! I still have a few things left on my to-do list as well as my wish list for our bedroom, but I am really pleased with how things are coming together!
Thank you for allowing me to share my decorating journey with you, and for your sweet visit today!
Best Wishes and Blessings,
Amanda
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