A bit of background: Someone gave us this couch forever ago. It is very old and looks to have been white at one point, but it had turned this dingy, stained, beige-ish, yellow-ish color. At the time, we had no couch, though, so we were happy to have it! We recently got a new couch for the living room, but this old one had a hide-a-bed in it that is perfect for when we have guests, so I really wanted to try to save it.
A few months back, someone gave me a TON of gauche. I had no idea what to do with it as I can't really canvas paint to save my life, but upon consulting Violet for ideas, figured it would pretty much work on whatever, so I decided to just try something completely random.
I pulled out all the bright colors of gauche since my craft room will be all bright and cheery and I wanted the couch to match. I had taken a before pic, but my camera is trying to give up the ghost, I think, and it somehow vanished. You can see how awful it was in the unpainted places in most photos, though.
You may not want to try this method if the furniture is going to be in a high-traffic area or if you have kids that spill because I really don't know how this would hold up to water, but since this will be used mostly to pile craft projects on unless someone needs to visit, fold out the bed, and crash on it, I wasn't concerned about that aspect.
It also had some frayed strings and edges on it, so I cut those off before I got started.
I started off by putting about a pea-sized dab of gauche straight from the tube onto a wet brush about an inch wide. I rubbed the paint into the fabric, then dipped the brush into water and kept working it around until the color was spread as far as it would go. Once that color was done, I repeated the process with the next color. Since you're using so much water, they will sort of naturally blend and run together. Also, where you use plain paint without watering and blending it enough it sill stay sort of crunchy, so be sure you add water and blend, blend, blend!
Inside and back...Ahhh, crafting with cats. I'm sure you can tell she "helped" the whole time. The older cat couldn't have possibly given a shit less what I was doing, but the kitten was all "OMG STUFF I CAN POTENTIALLY MESS UP!" the whole time.
Outside....Here, you can see on the back how dingy this thing was. I did the skirt on the bottom in solid back. Because, that's why. Please note the stuff on the carpet is strings I cut loose and paint splotches, not grime...although, this carpet is pretty grimy and won't be going with us into the new abode, hence me not worrying about what all I got on it.
Time for the cushions!
To tone things down a bit, I used blue for the cushions. Same method.
BLUE CUSHION! Big improvement.
Now, eventually I will finish this part, but this was WAY too hard to keep the cats off of even for the one tiny area I did, so I have to wait until I get it IN the new craft room to finish it so I can lock them out.
Either way, I took some puffyish fabric paint and outlined (and will outline the rest of) the piping in red.
Like so! :)
And done! I blacked out all the messy-ness of the paint on the floor so as not to distract from the overall picture. I left the back cushions, which were scavenged and not original to the couch - those were missing - the color they were since they also help tone it down a bit and do blend with some of the oranges and yellows.
This will be wedged in between shelving when it is at its proper home, so this is what you will see. Probably complete with cat. >.<
All in all, I'm VERY happy with how it came out. It is bright and cheery, so it will be great in the craft room, and it is a VAST improvement over the stained, dis-colored bleh I started with. Totally saved this couch's life.
<3
WW
