Good news, though - I have another guest post from Christy of Zimms Zoo! Read on to see how they built a couch to fit their needs! [Interestingly, I unfortunately sat on this post for long enough that the Knock Off Wood website changed to Ana White! Oops, my bad...]-----------------------------------
Have you ever wanted new furniture but your room is a funky shape or maybe the money is just not there or maybe you are like me and would be happy to have nothing in the room but cushions? Maybe you want something that doesn't take up a lot of premium floor space but could still seat a LOT of people? That is exactly what happened to me.
Our living room/dining room is a long narrow room and all the hand-me-down couches we have had just took up too much room and/or didn't fit the room right. So I went on a quest to find something else. While I was looking, my husband started bring home crating from his work that he thought we could re-use. It was full of staples and screws, but otherwise in good shape.
Then the most wonderful thing happened. I found Knock Off Wood, now Ana White. I LOVE that site. She has plans for the most wonderful furniture that I drool over. Like this Build a Storage Bed and these floating shelves. Then I found these Armless Sectional Piece Plans and it started the wheels in my head turning. I had all this crating that was exactly the right size and the screws that were in it were perfect too. It was meant for outdoor seating, but who cares? It would seat a lot of people, fit in the corner by the window, not take up too much space AND I could store toys under it.
After looking over the plans thoroughly, I decided that I would have my 13yo attempt to make these. He was excited because he could use power tools (imagine Tim the Toolman Taylor and his manly grunting). It took us about 3 days to cut the wood, remove the screws, and and yank out the staples (I now have the strongest forearms in the world!). We spent the next 2 days putting it together. Brown Bear (his manly alias) really did do most of the work. He cut, he sawed, he screwed, he conquered. The other kids (12,10,8 and 5) painted it. I merely supervised (which is harder than you may think with an 18 month old also wandering around the paint). After we had it painted and moved in, I happily took the old couch to the curb! But it was kinda hard to sit on. So I started scouring garage sales for cushions. I found several at a local home decor store that were on clearance. Then I found 15 cushions at garage sale for about $5. I used the home decor ones for the seats and the other cushions for the backs. I bought a sheet and cut it apart to make pillow covers. I used this pillow slip covers tutorial from Make It and Love It for the covers. I still have a couple to finish. I ran out of steam. The boxes under the couch were made using the tutorial from this Craft Room post, also at Make It and Love It, as inspiration. My mom brought me several apple and orange boxes from her work and they fit underneath the sections perfectly. I just modpodged the paper on the front.
In short, if you are looking to update your house or look be sure to check out Ana White or other similar sites and then see what you might have lying around that could be used in place of what she calls for. She encourages the use of re-claimed wood. In fact the next project for my boy is picnic tables made from pallets. We plan on making 3 of them for Christmas presents.
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Way to go, Christy - and a big high five for Brown Bear! Thanks so much for sharing with us!
I'll be linking up to Made By You Mondays at Skip to My Lou and Frugal Fridays at Life As Mom.
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