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Also, if you would like to see how the couch is wearing after one year, you can check out the video update at the bottom of this post.

Original Post

It has been over a year since I have shared a dogs-vs-cats post. We have added two more canines to our household in that time, so it is hardly a fair competition anymore with four Dogzillas to only two cat monsters. But of course, the damage and the raucous have only intensified with these two little critters who aren’t so little anymore.

This brings us to the most recent victim.

Today I am sharing a project that honestly turned out better than I thought it would. As my post title states, I have never painted upholstery before, but I did do a lot of research to see what other folks recommended. And then I did something totally different. Ok, not entirely. I did actually try to use some of their advice. But I like to use what I have on hand and when you are working with a couch that is in this bad shape, you don’t worry much about ruining it.

So here is my lovely couch. As you can see, there is quite a bit of damage, and you may not be able to see this, but it is also covered with quite a bit of dog and cat hair. All this damage did not happen overnight. So you might be wondering why I let it get so bad before trying to repair it, and the short answer is that I have kind of always hated it. It’s my fault. I picked it out. But the minute it was in our home, it looked terrible. The color was wrong, and it was too puffy. So when it started getting beat up by the dogs and cats, I told myself I didn’t care. But I have some pride, and the couch condition has finally reached its tipping point. So it must either be repaired or tossed out.

So my first step was to clean it and repair the damage. Unfortunately, there was too much damage to just sew the couch back together, so I decided to sew some patches in some circle shapes.

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I used some old Jean’s to make the patches.

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I use a curved upholstery needle to sew the patches to the couch and some Mod Podge to add more stability.

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The curve of the upholstery needle makes it possible to sew through the thickness of the couch and patches.

Once the holes were patched, I decided to add some additional patches to balance out the couch. And then, I cleaned the cushions and the sofa with a microfiber cloth and some cleaning solution.

Next, it was time for the scary part. I watched many videos on painting upholstery, and everyone seems to recommend using chalk paint. But I didn’t have any chalk paint, but I did have this red high gloss house paint, so after a bit of testing, I decided just to use what I had.

I used a spray bottle with water to help spread the paint for the first coat of paint, but after that, I just used straight paint.

Between each coat, I sanded the surface lightly.

This project did use a lot of paint—a little over 2 gallons to be exact and four coats.

The couch has a nice leather or vinyl feel with four coats of paint. And I really like the way it looks.

The finish seems very sturdy and flexible so far.

Hopefully, it will stand up to this bunch.

You can find more details in the video below.

Happy Upcycling,

One year couch update

It has been about a year since I painted my couch, and some of you have asked how the finish is holding up. Check out the video below to see what it looks like now.

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