Now, while this might seem an easy enough task, the sofa sits back against a wall in a very small room, almost literally wall to wall...and there is a bookshelf that lines one of the walls so that pulling the couch out means we must clean the book shelf completely off and move it.
Yep-a-roo!! Monday was the day. So we piled videos, books, etc. in the kitchen and yanked the couch out of its nestled home. Then we enlisted the man of the house to help us fix it. Knowing that the man of my life is never going to just "do something" but will give it his whole attention, darling daughter and I decided to go to the G & W to look for things that might be of interest to us....
We came back and hubby was still working on the object taking up the entire floor space of this small nook.....(granted he had done some other things during the afternoon). In the long run, the advise I found on the internet was not going to work...(different kind of sofa) so he cross tied it. I had advised him to maybe just do it the way daughter #1 and daughter #2 had done it a few years back since it worked....but he thought it would tighten up better the way he did it.
As you can tell from the above picture, Abby the Tabby, was a faithful helper!
Results, it did tighten up some, not sure if it was as good as when the daughters did it...or if the couch was just that much more worn out. (I suspect that is really it.) But it was an improvement and since it was getting way toward the end of the day, I deemed it good enough....
Until Tuesday afternoon, AFTER, I had completely put the room back together...Now, I could just donate this sofa to some needy family, but I am rather fond of it. In its day it was a very well made sofa and I am sure extremely comfortable. It still is comfortable otherwise it would already be gone. So I got to thinking about what the old timers would have done. I am still living with depression era kids and maybe that causes me to be a bit more frugal than I need to be but I got to thinking about the way my mother took a favored wore down chair and made it comfortable.
As I sat on this couch, I got to thinking if I could just lift this little place here in the back it would be almost perfect....So I went to my large rag bag and began pulling out old worn sheets and folding them flat.....The more I worked at this endeavor the more I liked the results. Finally, I got the entire couch augmented in a what I thought was a tremendous improvement, then I covered up my "cushioning" with a stained heavy duty table cloth, tucked it in well around the back and side edges.
How this will wear is debatable at this point. It may have to be redone sooner than later but the results were amazing! So was the mess I had made on the floor pulling rags out of the rag bag. Now, since this bag is big enough to hold a dead body, I decided to take the remainder of the afternoon cleaning it out and storing this mountain in a more useable way. Pulling memories from my childhood, I remember that the old timers (great aunts and grandmothers) used to make throw pillows stuffed with old socks and nylons. Well, I had quite a lot of those. And I found some nylon foundational garments that would work as pillow stuffing as well. So I have two plastic sacks set aside to make throw pillows for the couch. But that will have to be for another day. The rain is over for a few hours and the weeds are growing.
With that I must be off to the great out of doors, into the sunshine (and mud)!!