We got our recovered sofa back last week. It looks a lot like the photoshopped version only much better. Of course, the nice new sofa makes the channel-back arm chairs look shabby and the gold upholstery on them is an entirely different gold from the sofa. So if we can ever decide what might look good on them fabric-wise, I think we'll be sending them in for recovering and spring tying too.

While all this may sound some what extravagent, the sofa was originally bought for about $25 at a rummage sale and saw 20 years as the family sofa before needing to be recovered. It's as solid and heavy as any sofa you've ever carried and the cushions are down-filled. We could not have bought a new sofa for the cost of recovering.

And such is also the case for the two arm chairs, which my mom got at an auction for $.25 each. I will say that for years I was very sure it was clear why no one else bid on them. They are covered in gold brocade and one of them has needed its springs retied since my mom bought them. But ugly or not they have good bones and mahogany arms and legs. I recently went looking on the web and found something similar for over $1000 for one chair. We definitely couldn't get a set for the price it will cost to buy fabric and recover them.

Part of me wishes I could learn to do real upholstery. I can recover a dining room chair, but doing a sofa or an arm chair with any level of competance would require more time and practice than I wish to expend upon it.

But some time soon, I may have what feels like a brand new living room.