In the apartment, we had a large tan sectional. It worked beautifully in that at space.
In this house? Not so much.
That’s the living room right after move-in day. Sexy, no?
Through a series of unfortunate events, the sectional became too badly torn to donate or pass on to anyone. It went out for bulk pick-up and – after significant stalking – Craig, King of the Lists, came through.
For $50, this 7′ long, clean, blue-green velvet beauty had me at deep-button-tufted-goodness. She’d been in storage for the past 15-years {bed-bug free!} and, before that, lived in the “good living room” not to be touched except on special occasions or adult visitors. So basically, barely used {or so I am told}. Sold.
Welcome home, Mami.
Ditch that ugly skirt and it’ll be perfect. My own little taste of Hollywood Regency in this eclectic mix I call home.
And that should have been that, right?
Take the skirt off and be done with it. Right?
RIGHT??????
Not so much.
Christmas day – with all my family over – the support holding the back left leg broke. Whop whoppppppppp.
Thank goodness my 91-year-old grandmother wasn’t sitting on it!
What was supposed to be a relatively easy replacement of the leg support turned into a massive reconstruction of the entire frame. Not all vintage sofas were made to last, people. Let that be a lesson to you.
Isn’t that always the way?
A simple, straightforward, supposedly easy project comes with unforeseen speed bumps and, as layer by layer is removed, it balloons into a much {MUCH!} larger project.
Story of my life.
However, I really like the existing upholstery and that was in great shape. If this had also been a reupholstery job, Mami may found itself waiting for bulk pick up too.
Luckily, I have the best father on the planet Earth who fixed it for me. {This is the same father who went and picked it up from the seller and delivered it to my house. Yup. Best Dad Ever.} Not that I couldn’t have fixed it {because I totally could have given enough time & curse words} but sometimes you just have to let the master work. I took notes and helped hold the crowbar.
Also, almost anything can be fixed with either plywood, spackle, or caulk.
Dad even added a center set of legs for additional flop support {because you HAVE to have a floppable couch!}.
TA-DA!!!!
She’s mighty comfy and sturdy, by the way. Not sink-in-able but pleasantly firm. Good for shorter naps, dog snuggling, and 3-bottle-o-wine girl nights.
So here’s how the living room is looking these days –
I’m not loving the new rug with the new-old couch. I think they’re too similar in tone. The gray might move up to the guest room. Ideally, I’d like this rug but at $900 that’s unlikely. Suggestions?
Slowly but surely, it’s coming together. In the meantime, MY LIVING ROOM HAS A COUCH!!! What a thrilling concept.
brickcitylove.com 
Love it! It looks really great!
Curbly just did a post on affordable rugs:
http://curbly.com/capreek/posts/10103-roundup-25-modern-rugs-under-200
Sweet! Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.
great couch! i really like the color, and it looks completely different without the skirt.
Thanks!!!
I really like that sofa!!! And the color looks like a pretty smoke blue — Aren’t dads the best! I love when my dad offers to help us on major projects around our Casa it give us an extra boost of confidence and we curse less too 🙂
As for the sofa — I might wait to add pillows before adding the rug —- I love Overstock’s rugs and Rugs USA both affordable and you most likely need a large one for the space?
They’re totally the best!
And I do need a big rug; 8×10 is ideal for the space.
Taking the skirt off of an old couch makes a world of difference (as you already know). Whenever I find sofas and chairs at thrift stores, before I think something is too ugly, I lift up the skirt to see if it has potential. That sounds weird, but I am talking about furniture.
I totally do the same thing!
How do you do it? I never have such good luck at Craig’s List. I look for a while, then I get distracted and buy something I don’t need, or spend time figuring out how I’m going to transport and install say, a porch swing, that there’s not place for, and then I get so deep into the problem solving that I say something out loud and then someone more reasonable and practical reminds me that I don’t need a porch swing and I have no where to put it, and then I stop looking at Craig’s List because it only gets me in trouble. How do you do it? PS. The couch is AWESOME!
Honestly, it’s a combination of persistence, patience, restraint, & dumb luck.
It has taken a long time for me to cultivate the restraint part. I try very hard to think of an EXACT place for something before even inquiring and especially before dragging it home. Not just “that would be cool *somewhere. *” It has to be, “I could really use that in ThisSpecificPlace for ThisSpecificFunction.” But even now I still falter and bring home stuff that eventually just gets donated & taken as a loss/learning experience. It has gotten easier though.
The couch is beautiful without the skirt… I am always impressed that you can see what these pieces CAN be through what they currently are! Love it, as usual. Also, I have found Target has some nice/relatively affordable rugs. One I saw was the same coloring as the one you like from Anthropologie…
http://www.target.com/Home-Neutral-Exploded-Floral-Collection/dp/B0031P71L2/ref=sc_qi_collection_item
Megan sent me that same EXACT link. Great minds… 🙂
OMG….I am so unbelievably jealous right now!!! That couch is insanely awesome!! Totally worth all of the work. So stunning!
Thanks!! It was totally worth it.
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Wowie. That is gorgeous! I also love the colour. Really really beautiful.
She’s got great legs too 🙂
Great legs are so important, no? 😉
I was at the missoni home sample sale yesterday and they had a great grey rug which would be perfect here. It was 79 x 118 in the darker grey kaizen 159. I loved it but can’t do $1500, even though the wool weave was thick and lovely, the colors gorgeous and original retail is $6300 . For me, it was too big thank goodness. For you, it’s worth looking at today only until 6pm on west 39th st. go.
I’m sure it was gorge but if I can’t do $900, I certainly can’t do $1500 {even if it is a great deal!}. Thank you for the idea though!! Maybe darker would be better than going lighter. Hmmm….
ooo…. that couch is awesome. What a steal!
Right?! Eeeeee!!!! I’m so excited about it.
Fun! I want to see the whole room!
I haven’t taken any wider angle shots. What a dirty little tease. I’ll get on that this weekend.
Just linked to you today. Happy weekend!
You’re awesome!! Thank you!
GREAT find! Love your living room too!
Thanks!!
Hi there– I just love how your home is coming together. I’m especially taken with the paint in your living room. Do you know what brand/color it is? It’s the perfect cream!
Sure! It’s Benjamin Moore’s Sea Pearl in matte. I see more gray in it in person (than you see in these pics). It’s a great neutral!
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Pretty great. You don’t need that anthro rug IMO. Get a second hand persian rug at a flea market and have it cleaned. It’ll be perfect.
Fantastic site you have here but I was curious if youu knbew of any
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question: I just bought a couch almost identical to this. Skirt is coming off without too much trouble, just LOTS of staples. My problem is–there is a kind of pressed in line/crease where the skirt was attached. Did you have that? If so, how did you get it out? I am not sure what an iron would do to this pretty velvet. Thanks for posting! This idea got us a couch that looks like a million bucks for next to nothing.
I didn’t try to steam it out but that’s what I would do. Mine just kind of faded away after a while.