When our son moved out, he left the sofa he had in his basement apartment behind.
The thing was beat up, and the upholstery was torn and had cigarette holes throughout.
I was worried about what all the stains were, but I hated to throw it away. The sofa itself was in great shape, but I couldn’t afford to have it reupholstered. One of the small local sewing shops was closing, and they were selling the material at half price. I thought if I could get some upholstery material at a decent price, I may try to reupholster the sofa on my own. I didn’t think I could make it look any worse than it already looked. I measured the sofa and asked if they had enough of the cloth in the store. I had to buy two full bolts of the cloth, but it cost less for the two than if I had bought one bolt from another store. It took me nearly two months to measure and fit the cloth to the sofa, and another two months to finish the job. I had to buy new upholstery tacks for the arms and along the back and bottom of the sofa. I read every article I could find on how to reupholster a sofa. When I was finally finished with the reupholstering job, I took my husband downstairs. He thought I had bought a new sofa, and I told him it was what I had been working on. I asked if he could tell I did the reupholstering? He was speechless and then said it looked like a new sofa from the furniture store, and maybe I should take up reupholstering as a new career.