My sister-in-law texted me sometime last week & said "we painted our couches". I'm pretty sure I didn't even respond, because in my head I'm thinking, "painting couches?" Can that even be done? Then, she called me up & was telling me about it & we both decided she needed to do a guest post on my blog!
So, here she is my sister-in-law (aka best friend & sister), Bekah Young.
&& yes, her roommate is also named Rebecca, so don't get them confused!
Bek/Bekah = Sister-in-law
Bec = Roommate
---Well, Bec and I moved off campus last year and had no couches. Then, thankfully, my parents said, “Here you go, kids! Enjoy our old couches, for free!”
As a college student, I hear “free” and naturally accept. So we didn’t really care that they weren’t exactly the most beautiful couches in the world (let me interject and say that my parents got these couches for pretty cheap back in the day when they had three teenagers to support, so it didn’t really matter that they weren’t gorgeous). It also didn’t matter that you could definitely tell that it had unquestionably been used by two boys (and all their friends) and a girl (and her friends, who all had nail polish)!
However, since my roommate and I are now seniors and are “grown-up,” we decided that we would be daring and paint our couches. Yes, I said paint our couches!
“Whaaaaaaat!?” and
“Hooow!?” have been two very common responses to our announcement of our newly painted couches. Well, folks, my best friend/sister-in-law is kind enough to let me tell you!
First, I would not recommend officially making this decision at about 5:30 in the evening (even if you have thought about it for months), purchasing the paint, driving to – insert nearest convenient art supply store -, driving back and beginning your project at about 8:00. However, I can tell you that it’s definitely do-able.
So you’re all wondering… Supplies! We have a three-seat couch and a love seat – pictures below – so we used the following portions.
Supply list:
1 gallon of latex/acrylic paint.
4 8 oz. bottles of Textile Medium (or maybe even 5).
Foam brushes (you know, the super cheap ones!).
Foam roller.
Let me say that we did this a little bit awkward, so I’m going to tell you how I would do it if I were to do it again with all this knowledge from our mistakes!
I would get an empty paint can and dump half of the gallon in the empty. Try your best to split it 50-50. Mix 2 to 2 ½ bottles of textile medium in each paint can – stir well!
Then, guys, it’s simple… Start painting!
Use the foam brushes to paint the details, like the edges and cracks of the couch. Thankfully, we were blessed with an extremely simple couch, so this went quickly and very easily. Next, use the foam roller to paint the big, open spaces. Bec took the details and I took the roller – I think this helped it go faster, But you could definitely do it by yourself.
You can see my roommates arm painting the details. We thought about pictures
after we got started, whoops. And you can see, the couch is a little bit rough
Like I said, we did this in a super awkward way. We decided after we finished painting the big couch that we would take off the skirt. So this is before we finished painting it. And you can also see where we had a bit of an accident… Whoops!
Done with the big portion! Now on to the love seat and the cushions!
Imagine pictures of the love seat and the cushions. It was so late, we just wanted to be done and head off to the lake for the weekend
The finished product!
All snuggly in our little, bitty living room! Our dog, Ty, hasn’t quite gotten used to the fact that we won’t let him on the couches anymore. He gets super pouty about it too. Silly boy! Also, you can see the gorgeous t-shirt quilt my sister made for me over on the love seat!
It’s really rather simple! We’re planning on painting the legs of the couch a bright blue and making some cute pillows all in the blue family. Also, hoping to get my sister to help us make some covers for the seat cushions. So perhaps, if I’m allowed, an update when these things are finished!
