Fact:
I'm obsessed with anything vintage.
So when I saw this beauty rolling into the sales floor of the Salvation Army I literally put a death grip on Josh's arm and gasped.
Have you ever seen something so magnificent?! So Majestic?! Ahhh!
Sorry, I'm still swooning over the serendipity of this thrift store find. I guess I was in the right place at the right time because I didn't even let them get a sales ticket on this bad boy before I told them to slap a SOLD ticket on! As soon as it came out of the back room I knew it was mine.
As I previously stated I love vintage stuff. My "thing" for the past few years has been mid-century modern pieces and basically anything funky from the mid 1950's to mid 1960's. This gem fits that bill perfectly. On top of it, it's my favorite color- Green.
Generally, most thrift stores have a few pieces similar to this- some vintage color, velvet, well loved, plain. But this, folks, is the find of the century. Not only is it in like new condition (I swear no one ever sat on the thing), it's comfortable as heck and we snagged it for $40. Yup, you read that right. $40! I have to add that my mom actually bought this for us for a housewarming gift, so I can't take all the credit (she even talked them down from $50).
I know right!? How lucky are we?! Of course, Josh wasn't as thrilled about it the way I was, but bless his heart, he's trying. I think he's starting to warm up to it a bit and I know once he sees the finished room he'll love it. He's already raved about how comfy it is (and long, so he can actually lay down), so I know he'll eventually love the color.
There were two really minor issues with the couch. The first being the legs looking a bit worn. Probably from vacuuming, but nevertheless, they don't match the pristine nature of the rest of the couch. When it gets to be a bit warmer and dryer I'd like to take the legs off and paint or refinish them to make the piece really shine.
The second issue is the 6 "pancake pillows" that came with it.
It's hard to really see the extent of the flatness of the pillows in this picture, but trust me, they kind of sank into the crease of the couch when they laid up against it.
FEAR NOT!
Being handy and crafty, I came up with a simple and free solution!
I ripped the stuffing out of 3 ugly old pillows that were a similar size!
You can't tell from this shot, but the stuffing is foam wrapped in batting.
Well, the couch pillows were flat, but not flat enough that they would need an entire pillow's worth of stuffing, so I split the batting and foam from the three pillows to give me enough "stuff" to fill all 6 pillows. two of the pillows were slightly larger than the other 4 so I made sure to stuff batting into those seeing as that was slightly wider than the foam. The rest got foam or batting.
As you can see, I used a seam ripper to open the green pillows, making sure not to rip the fabric as I did it. I also made sure to open the seam that had been originally left open to stuff the pillows so it would be unnoticeable once I was finished.
Also, notice the fact that the inside of the seam is the same color as the outside of the pillow! You know what that means? This bad boy hasn't even faded in the last 50-60 years! I'd like to see today's furniture stand up to that test.
Once I adjusted the stuffing, making sure it reaches to all four corners and isn't lumpy I used a pretty large needle (6 inches) to stitch these bad boys up by hand. It's a labor of love and I only had the energy to finish 4 tonight, but once I have the rest finished I'll post more photos. I can't wait to see how they look on the couch and I REALLY can't wait to see how the couch looks in the duplex!
The walls of the living room will be grey- probably something close to Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore (but cheaper), with white crown molding. For accent colors I'm thinking black or a sort of cornflower/robin's egg blue:
Let me know what you think!
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