Accessorizing the living room.

We got our couch free from a friend’s boss who was buying a new one. It’s apparently an expensive couch, over a thousand dollars, but I really don’t like it. Its cushions are lumpy, it isn’t comfortable other than for one person laying flat on it, not to mention it only has two seat cushions instead of three {Eugene’s pet peeve.} I’ve tried really hard to like it – I mean it was free, that usually translates to love for me. But I just can’t pretend. I don’t like my couch.

I really really want to buy a sectional like this…

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or this suave guy…

 
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But, we have a lot still to do on the house {i.e. flooring, countertops}, and we don’t think it would be wise for us to drop around a thou. on a new sofa {that we don’t really need} until we know where our budget stands after the remaining big-ticket fixes. So out of my desperation to make myself like our couch a little bit, I decided to make some throw pillows to distract my eye from the lumpy cushions.

I picked up one yard of each of these two fabrics at Joann’s. The kaki and white polka dot fabric was on red-tag clearance for $3/yard & I thought it’d tie in the curtains nicely. Tthe blue floral print is a thicker home decor fabric that was 40% for $6.99 a yard and would pull in some blue to coordinate with the adjoining kitchen/dining room {see this page for pics of the rooms.}

Without a single scrap of fabric left, two yards made 4 covers for Ikea’s 20”x20” throw pillow inner cushions that I picked up a while back for $2.99 a piece.

By far, these pillow covers turned out to be the best I’ve ever made. {Woohoo!} Since I didn’t have any extra fabric to play with, I used pinking shears to cut my fabric to avoid having to do a folded under seam.

I simply cut my yard in half and then used the pillow to guide my layout. I first hemmed the two shorter sides. Then I folded the fabric wrong-side-out over the pillow, bringing up the one end about 3/4 of the way to the top of the pillow & pinned the sides, like so…

Then, I folded the top flap of fabric over & pinned the sides. This gave me about 18” from top to bottom. See how I had overlapping fabric to sort-of make a pocket?

Then I carefully slipped out my pillow insert & sewed both open sides, about 1/4” seam…

Then it was testing time – flipped the fabric right side out & slid my pillow in one side…

Pulled the other side over top…

And I had a perfectly closed, yet easily removed pillow cover. I love it when things actually work like I planned! :)

I still dream of a new couch some day, but these pillows certainly help prettify the lumpy guy…

I also went into our backyard and gathered some dead sticks. {We have plenty extra left over from when we lost a huge branch in the ice storm.} My mom gave me a battery operated branch with little lights on the ends of the twigs. The lights are a light blue, and I never really had a place to display, but now that I’m working blue into the kitchen and living room, I figured I’d give it a try. So I added some branches, the battery operated branch, a green beaded sprig thing I bought on clearance after Christmas at Walmart, and stuffed ‘em all into a pretty green pottery vase I was given from work….

Obviously, the pink fireplace “stone” mosaic is a bit distracting, but what about the branch accessory? Too much?

Eh, we’ll leave it for a few days to give it a chance. It’s crazy how adding a few accessories can really make a room feel so much more comfortable!

 

Oh, and the pillows & covers ended up costing $22.47 total all four {or $5.62 each.} And the branch thingy was free…all given by my momma, mother nature, and work. Mmm, I love the sound of free! :)

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