DIY upholstery

As I mentioned in Monday's post - DIY upholstery is one of the easiest ways to customize your look.  I found these great storage cubes and am getting ready to recover them with a fabric that I LOVE for my mom's living room.  If you can see past the UGLY it will totally be worth the time invested. 

I thought this project would be a quick and simple fix to turn these ugly ducklings into beautiful swans, I was mistaken.  After I sat down to measure out the fabric and make sure I had enough for both cubes, I realized my project was going to be much more labor intensive.  Not only do you need to make sure your cuts are exact, but due to the intricate pattern - the sides won't match up with the lid without actually sewing all four side.  Now, I realized I would be sewing much more than anticipated to accomplish perfection.  

Of course if you don't care then you could simply wrap the fabric around the cube and sew only one side.  Since this is for a client (my mom) I actually want everything to look perfect.  So by the time I cut all the fabric, pulled out the screws for the lid, and lined up everything to get ready to sew, I didn't have it in me to pull out the sewing machine and finish the project last night.

After a long day at work I really wanted to get started on at least one of these cubes.  So I just finished the first cube about 10:30pm.  With one done and one to go I can hardly wait for these beauties to be completed.  I was hoping for perfection - let's call it 98% perfection with bits of imperfections throw into it :-)

Here's some pictures to go along with my hard work

 After the project

 After

 Side by side - Ugly Ducking, Swan in the making - I still need to add the legs

 I told you the before was UGLY!!

  

Over the past two weeks I have watched my ideas start to come together and I can hardly wait for the big reveal.  I have the upholster coming on Thursday to pick up the arm chairs and I think I found the fabric for the wingback chair.  I still need to sew some pillows, buy some DOWN inserts, pick a complementary paint color, and start putting the pieces into the room.  Word of advise in regards to throw pillows.  INVEST in some down/feather inserts.  They will make the room.  You really don't want to skimp on some polyester inserts that you can't use.  I made that mistake and almost immediately had to replace them with a better quality insert.  The best thing is - they aren't that expensive, Ballard Designs and Pottery Barn have great ones to chose from.  Also, some great fabric stores have them for a decent deal. (Additional Note - one of my girlfriends mentioned IKEA has great inserts for super cheap - thanks Nellie!)

My goal is to upload before pictures this week but since we have a baby class, full-time jobs, family in town starting on Friday, and a couple of thing in the nursery to wrap up - I'm really going to try to set aside some time to get these pictures done. 

Any fun projects out there that you have watched come to fruition over the past couple of months?  If your looking for inspiration - head over to Pinterest, you will find plenty of ideas there.  You can click on my Pinterest button to the right and see if you can draw inspiration from any of the thousands of boards out there.    Can't wait to share more.