Make Your Sofa Look New With These 3 Easy Fixes
February 02, 2021
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How to make your old sofa look new!
I think sofas are the hardest piece of furniture to shop for...well, as
least the hardest to pick RIGHT. After we paid off all of our debt years
ago, we splurged on a beautiful, expensive sectional for our home...and
years later I absolutely hated that thing.
We had a number of problems with it -- from the fabric to the cushions. I
shared my
review of our Arhaus sectional here.
We later discovered
this sofa from Macy's
that is my absolute favorite couch ever -- you can
see it in our old house here. (It was way less expensive than the Arhaus version.) We ended up selling that Macy's sofa to the buyers, and they still have it!
I have missed it since! I have a love/hate situation with our current sofas,
and I'll talk more about that soon. They are crazy comfy and I LOVE how the
look -- from far away. We'll call them the Mona Lisa sofas. ;)
I've had to come up with some ways to keep them looking decent over the past
few years, so I'm sharing my tricks for making a sofa look (almost) brand
new!
We got these from a local store in Indy called Urban Underpriced for a GREAT
price.
First up, a trick I learned years ago that solved a problem that drove me
batty -- couch cushions that slide out:
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The soft looked so good back then!
The easy fix? A
non-slip rug mat. It works SO well!:
You can see more about
fixing sliding cushions here!
That stopped them from moving around all the time, next up was fluffing up
the back cushions.
Our dog perches on the back of each couch -- it's his spot to watch for
everyone that is trying to kill us. 😄 I didn't look close enough when I
bought these sofas and didn't realize the back cushions were just full of
batting.
They get smashed so easily:
If you have the same you know how hard it is to keep them looking full and
not smushed. My fix? Add
more batting
to fill them up! I've added at least a bag to each back cushion over the
years:
Another tip -- instead of trying to reshape the cushions from the outside
-- I unzip and move the batting around inside. I usually have to push it
back up to the top and into the corners.
What a difference!:
Till the dog smushes them again. :)
And my worst nemesis -- sofa fabric that pills up. Curses!! It happens all
the time with ours:
There's an easy trick for this too!
Grab a
fabric shaver
-- they're supposed to be used to remove pilling off your clothes, but they
work GREAT for upholstery too!:
My only complaint is we need to change the batteries often, so I was
thrilled to find
this plug in fabric shaver. I ordered it today!
Here's another before of the sofa cushion:
And after using the fabric shaver:
Have you tried any of these tricks or do you have some of your own? I'd love
to hear!
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our home here.
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I've had great luck with the Kehoo lint shaver that's on Amazon. My family room sofas are like a tweed fabric and this tool works great.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI bought an expensive sofa that has the same type of material yours has from Club Furniture 6 years ago and it is comfortable but the stains will not come out. Tecnically I can unzip the covers but they are almost impossible to get off and on. I even had a carpet cleaning company try to steam clean it to no avail.
ReplyDeleteIf you are a knitter you will likely have heard of a Gleener. Works 100 times better than the electric or battery shaver. Your local yarn store or Amazon sells them. I have given them to my non-knitting friends - Life changing1
ReplyDeleteI really do appreciate your blog! Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteMy dog is sitting on my couch right now in the exact same way! I usually just try to fluff it up from outside but I'm going to try the inside asap! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAlready took your tip on the delinter and that works great, too.
Keep up the good work.
I have made bolster pillows by rolling 1" batting. I wonder if you could use that to line the inside of your couch pillows to give them some more shape. Still stuff the regular batting inside but that might keep it from separately as easily with the dog?
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! Excited to try these tips!
ReplyDeleteI have three small rescue dogs and each of them has their own spot on the back of the couch. Although my dogs don't smell "doggy", after a year of having three dogs I decided to wash those couch pillows. I was really ambitious and removed all of the stuffing from the pillows and had a gigantic messy pile on the floor. I then zipped up the empty pillow cases and washed and dried them. Re-stuffing them was a huge PITA and killed my arms but I got it done. Never again! I save the stuffing from old, worn and/or stained accent pillows to plump up those couch pillows. The couch came from an outlet and wasn't expensive - the dogs do love it though. Next time I'm going with leather. My daughter has a leather couch and the dogs' toenails haven't hurt it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the non-slip rug mat tip! I am trying that out this weekend!!
ReplyDeleteI love your tip about sliding couch cushions, we have the same problem at our house. I immediately went and bought some non-slip rug mat and put it down. Unfortunately, our results were not as positive as yours. The mat kept getting bunched up and the cushions continued to slide. Any ideas? It's a super idea, maybe tacking the mat down? ugh. Thank you!!
ReplyDeleteI have a dog perched on the back of the couch as I type. Any tips for fluffing the cushion when there is no zipper? It’s all sewn together.
ReplyDeleteLove your beautiful house and helpful tips!
Thank you.
I have the same problem. I won't make that mistake next time I buy a couch!
DeletePlease I hope you will see this in the next day or two. What color did you use for the center above your fireplace. That dark color is PERFECT for what I'm trying to create on my walls. I will be looking to see if you answer 🙂
ReplyDeleteIt's called Cyberspace from Sherwin-Williams. :)
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