Go Big or Go Home...I Painted A Couch For My First Project

                Wow...it's been a while since I've posted and a LOT has happened in that time. So, when I first decided to start my blogging adventure we had just moved from Georgia to Kansas. We found a great house to move into, with a great school for our kids to get enrolled into, and speaking of school, I had just started yet another semester in school (I am a full time Information Technology major and business minor) Aaaaaand I decided that I also wanted to fulfill my dream of doing DIY projects and blog all about it. I'm a little out of breath just reading that....

That's not to make excuses as to why I haven't posted anything in a while but..well... I just wanted to let you guys know that I haven't given up on this. In fact, I actually have a project to report on and it was a doozy....

I PAINTED MY COUCH

When my fiancé and I decided to move in together and combine our households we'd decided to move the majority of my furniture into a storage unit until we could move into a bigger place as his home was already filled with furniture that seemed to really fit in where we were. I 'd had my couches for almost 10 years and they were starting to show their ages so when we made the big move my original plan was to place them curbside and give them to whomever wanted them. My fiancé thought that was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard....Man, I'm so glad I listened to him BUT not at the time... It seemed that every time I went to that darn storage unit, there they were...in the way.

Here it is during much happier times in it's life :)

Fast forward to our big move to Kansas. We'd done a pretty quick search for our new home and found the perfect place for us. It was a three bedroom home with kind of a wonky floor plan. One bedroom on the first floor between the kitchen and a small living room and the rest of the bedrooms upstairs along with a larger family room. Most importantly it had a two car garage that will never see a car as he and I both agreed instantly that it would be our workshop. 

Now, we had two living room spaces needing to be furnished but the one downstairs was too small for a full living room set. One problem we faced was that the move was brutal for my aging furniture and who wants to pay for new furniture after a move halfway across the country? Not me so I had to come up with another plan. I am still really new to the DIY life so re-upholstering was out of the question (at the time...lol). I took to Pinterest and saw a few blogs from people that painted their furniture. I figured, what did I have to loose? If it failed, I could finally get rid of these couches that were now taking up space in our garage workshop!

The first thing that had to be done was a bit of repair work on the trim and legs as all of the moving had not been kind to my poor couch! One of the couches was beyond repair and died on the operating table but my sweetheart was able to save one. He did most of that part since I was a little nervous around the power tools...I got over that pretty quickly though!

Once it was repaired it was time to mask the body of the couch so that I could paint the trim first...NOTE: If I could go back I would paint the trim LAST as I did have to go back and fix some areas that got messed up. 

After I got finished painting the trim it was time to bite the bullet and paint the whole thing. I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit overwhelmed as it was my very first attempt at anything DIY but I've always been a bit of a *GAMBLER* so I figured go big or go home.

The colors that I chose were white and Behr Intergalactic, a color that I absolutely love (they didn't pay me to say that but if they wanted to, I'd totally take the check!)

In all of the blogs that I read the key to a successful paint job was fabric medium and I am not one to re-invent the wheel so I made sure I had plenty on hand which was it's own part time gig as the hobby lobby only stocked a few bottles on the shelf at a time (4 to be exact...I bought them out a couple of times).

As per the other tutorials that I watched (I think I watched every single one online) and read, I used 1 part paint, 1 part fabric medium, and 1/2 part water. I, however, did not apply the coats of paint by hand, opting instead to use out Graco paint sprayer to make fast work of getting the paint on the couch. 

For the first coat of paint I first used a spray bottle of plain water to dampen the surface of a small section of the couch before I sprayed that section with the paint mixture. After I applied the paint, I worked it in with a scrub brush to get it down into the fabric and not just on the surface. The paint acts as a dye to color the couch.
I did not do a great job at taking picture during the first part of the process but here are a few of how things looked after a couple of coats...I have to admit that I was nervous that my first project would be a failed one....

The cushions after the first coat

You can still see a bit of gold

It's finally starting to look quite a bit more grey much to my relief!

After about 4 coats of the paint mixture it finally started looking good and I started to feel relieved that I wasn't going to totally fail at this!

To answer a few question that people have asked me as I started to share this experience...

1. It feels more like leather than the original material

2. The color does not rub off or transfer, I did apply some minwax finishing wax to protect the color 

3. It's not "crunchy" at all...the feel of the cushions is kind of like an outdoor patio cushion but all in all not bad. To avoid the crunchiness I sanded the couch down after each coat of paint...nothing too strenuous but I read that it helped so that's what I did.

4. I am not one of those Pinterest Queens that can just whip up a great project in no time flat. I had classes, kids, and other parts of my home that needed attention..this one took me a bit of time...I let it dry 24 hours between coats. We live in Kansas and it was pretty cold in our garage workshop...I ended up using a blowdryer on the last two coats to speed up dry time and catch some of the streakier areas. It took me about a week from start to finish

So THAT was my fist project and now it's sitting in our newly minted sitting room...I was feeling pretty good about myself so I actually went a little further and made the pillows for the couch myself as well...Hopefully I'll get to writing a quick post about that here soon as it was a piece of cake to do. All in all this was a pretty fun project for me and I'm already at the Goodwill and looking through craigslist for my next piece of furniture to paint!

I really hope you enjoyed this installment...let me know what you think in the comments!

Until next time (which won't nearly be as long...I promise).

Take care :)