CPR Anyone? - Family Room Resuscitation

Well, I gave you a sneak peak of some trim I was painting the other night. And I will tell you that it’s for our family room. That room is in need of resuscitation. It just feels dead and dingy to me. Here is a before pic of the room (try not to cringe).  It looks very bare because it’s cleaned up.  Usually it is covered with toys from the kids.  I don’t bother putting décor items out (they’d just destroy them).  The tables are usually covered with books and puzzles anyway.



The first stop in my family room revitalization is the sofa.



Actually the first stop was IKEA. Hubby and I made a pilgrimage to the huge store and picked up a few things including this slip-cover for their Hovas sofa.

I don’t actually have a Hovas sofa, but I have a sofa that is the same shape and just slightly smaller than IKEA’s sofa. And for a price of $49 I couldn’t resist buying this beautiful white canvas slipcover and doing a little of my own tailoring to make it fit. So with a little nip here and a little tuck there…



… I now have a new (did I mention easy) IKEA slipcover to fit my Lazy Boy sofa. Shhh.. don’t tell. ;)

Next I needed to recover my pillows. I pulled some colors out of my fabric stash.  I wanted some with texture and remembered a blog post by Censational Girl about using a bath rug to make a pillow cover. As it happens, hubby and I had JUST bought some great bath rugs at Home Goods. And every time I go in the bathroom, my two year old runs in to lie down on the new rug. It’s comfy looking! So I thought this would, indeed, make a good pillow cover. Oh, and hubby’s response? “Go ahead; I know where I can get another rug.” Isn’t he great?!!



I also found some inspiration for another pillow from a ruffled duvet cover at Urban Outfitters.  I’ve included a tutorial for you below.

~ Ruffled Pillow Tutorial ~

1. Cut out two squares of fabric the size of your pillow plus seam allowance.
 

2. Cut strips of fabric and make ruffles. Then, using a string attached to a fabric marker, draw an arc on the corner of the fabric as a guide for your first ruffle.


3. Place your ruffle on the line and pin to keep the gathers from moving as you sew.


4. Sew the ruffle on.


5. Repeat steps 2-4 until you have as many ruffles as you like.


6. Sew the two pieces together (right sides facing). Either add a zipper as I did or sew the fourth side after inserting the pillow.





So after all that, here are the current updates to the room.  Still many more to go.











Hopefully I can get the trim up on the wall this week and show you. It’ll be a HUGE change for the room! Can’t wait!!

Rebecca


Linking up at: