I just think I can do whatever I want to do

And I've been wanting to reupholster my couches.

In fact, you may remember that a few months ago I put a bunch of fabric sample pictures up to get help in deciding which fabrics to use. (In a strange twist of fate, I wasn't able to use either of the combinations I blogged about...not enough fabric in stock. But I did get pretty close, and I did get the elephant fabric that I love.)

Part of the reason for my reupholstering fixation was that the cushion were springing leaks, and batting was showing through.That, and some springs were popping out of the backs of the couches and tearing up the fabric.

The blue arrow points from the bottom to the top of the couch.
The green arrows point to two of the springs that popped out; there's another one hiding underneath the fabric. You can't
see it in this picture (and this was a surprise for us), but
the center board is not attached at the bottom; it's just dangling inside the couch. That's not good!

A couple of weeks ago it was time: Bruce and I finally started to tear apart the love seat. Well, that sounds more violent than it really was. Actually we carefully looked at each piece of fabric on the couch to see which one was on top of everything else, and then we carefully pried it off using an upholstery staple remover (which looks like  a two-pronged screwdriver), and I carefully marked the piece with an arrow pointing up and numbered it "1". ("Pointing up" is to the ceiling or to the back of the couch, depending on the piece.) Then we did the next piece (labeling it "2", etc.). I figured we were smart enough to put the pieces back on in reverse order. And we were! :-)

We took pictures like this at every step, so we'd have
something to refer to when we rebuilt—which piece went where,
how they were attached, etc. . In the end, I just remembered
without the pics anyway.

The blue dot marks the bottom of the couch frame.
The green dot is on the side of the deck. The deck is where the cushions sit, but it is attached to the bottom-front piece, and it wraps around the sides a little. The arrows are on the bottom-side piece, which overlaps the sides of the deck.

The green arrow points to a strip of chip-board
(like book-board; it's about 1/16-inch or maybe 3/32-inch  thick). This is stapled on top of the wrong side of the fabric to make a straight edge for the fabric to crease over. The pink arrow points to a tack-strip, which folds over and is hammered into the frame; this way you won't see any nails or staples on the outside of the couch.

Here you see the side piece all removed, and the foam exposed. The foam is in pretty good condition. The gray stuff is pellon that is attached to another piece. You can also see the staple remover.

And here I am, removing the fabric from the arm of the couch.

As we took off each piece of fabric I paid attention to how they were put on in the first place: some pieces were just stapled in place, some had tack strips, some had extra pieces of pellon-type stuff sewed onto them...  All of this fabric removal process took about... three to five hours, I'd guess.

the well-labeled bottom-side piece.

some messed up cushions

in progress (you can see those nasty springs again)

And you are looking at the bottom of a fully-naked couch. Shocking!
You can see that there is no fabric between the springs and the foam. That doesn't see right to me.

We found junk in the couch, but no money. :-(

A few bobby-pins, some pencils, a pen, screws, my long-lost scissors!, an earring, and a crochet hook. The crochet hook is a mystery since none of us crochets. We must have inherited it with the couch.

The next step was for me to pick out some stitching. The bottom part (underneath the seat cushions) is called the deck, and it is made of some black fabric that goes directly under the cushions, and is sewn to some of the fashion fabric. I had to take those two bits apart. There were a couple of other pieces that were sewn to ugly pellon stuff, so they had to come apart too, and the shoulders of the couch were actually three pieces sewn together; those also had to come apart, and I had to take apart the back and seat cushions.  (Is there a word that means "to take apart"? The online thesaurus suggests "annihilate". Hm.)

So, now the couch is naked, pieces that were sewn are taken apart, and everything is labeled.

Next steps tomorrow...