A Little Love(Seat) for the Living Room

We recently completed another project - we refinished an antique wooden loveseat! It took us a while, but it's done now, and it looks great. :-) Here's how it went down:

We bought a much neglected loveseat from a guy on Craigslist last summer. He lives down by the lake, and had an entire house, porch, garage and detached second garage across the street filled with stuff. So, naturally, he didn't have room for this little wooden loveseat, and was willing to part with it. :-) The original price was $50. We hemmed and hawed a bit, not because of the price, but because it was yet another project to add to our list. While we debated, the seller dropped the price to $45, and then $40, with the statement that he "couldn't go lower." We thought it was quite funny, as we were simply considering the ramifications of yet another refinishing project. In the end our hesitation saved us $10. :-) We hauled it home in our little Saturn, and this is what it looked like upon arrival.



Yuck, right? That cushion got chucked immediately. Double yuck. The loveseat sat in our living room for a bit while we figured out how best to go about repairing it.  We knew that the seat needed some repairs and reinforcing. We finally settled on a homegrown solution - we drilled hundreds of holes and screwed eye hooks into the holes. Then we strung twine through the holes back and forth creating a rope support system for the cushioned seat we would put on top. We also added a few small boards perpendicular to the frame to add additional strength. This was the point at which we discovered that the wood was mahogany. We broke four drill bits in the process of installing these holes! This somewhat tedious process took us several months, as you might imagine. :-)



I had scrubbed down the frame with vinegar and warm water before we started working on it, and we planned to sand down the whole frame and refinish the existing stain. But then, at some point in the eye hook process, we realized that what we had thought was stain was in fact a very dark brown paint. Glory be! We could simply repaint it, and save ourselves tons of time! So, we picked out a paint color, and set about painting the frame. In the process of painting, we got a wild hair and decided to experiment with a faux finish. Basically, we sanded and wiped off some of the new paint, letting the darker paint shine through. Then we wiped stain over the paint, both new and old. Once that had dried, we coated the whole piece in some brush on lacquer, and loved the resulting finish.



Next up was cutting out a piece of fabric to line the top of the frame (and cover our support system we had designed. Which was super sturdy but not so pretty.) I cut it to size, leaving a little bit of an overlap that could be tucked under to create a smooth edge. Then we pounded in dozens of upholstery nails to hold it down securely.



The final effect was so smooth and pretty. See the pretty nails?



Next we flipped it over (setting it on the piano bench for stability) and cut a piece of black broadcloth to cover up the bottom. A few more upholstery nails held this in place too.



This created a nice professional looking underside.



We created the cushion out of two pieces of 2 inch thick foam. We bought a big roll of it at Hobby Lobby for about $25 (before a coupon!) and cut out one big piece, and then pieced together the second from the remaining foam. We used hot glue to attach them together, and it worked fairly well. A little crunchy, but otherwise fine. Then we wrapped the whole thing in muslin and sewed it tight to ensure it kept its shape. Then we cut out the actual cover and carefully sewed that on. I found it much easier to simply sew it on in place instead of coming up with some complicated system of fastening it. If we need to take it off we'll just cut the threads and re-sew it. No biggie. But this does remind me that I need to scotchguard it. :-)



I am bad blogger and forgot to take pictures of the cushion making step. So sorry. But here's the finished product, and doesn't it look great against our fireplace?



I love the curvy arms,



the detail on the back,

and the slightly scary feet. :-) They have toenails!



All in all we spent about $100 on this project start to finish, which includes the piece itself, the drill bits, eye hooks, twine, boards and brackets, fabric, foam and furniture nails, and paint. So not too shabby for a custom, beautiful little wooden loveseat, no? :-)