How to DIY simple upholstery without sewing – with slipcovers!

If you’re thinking of rejuvenating your couch and looking for DIY Simple Upholstery, then this is the place. With custom slipcovers – it’s easy!

Why Upholstery is No Longer as Popular?

It usually comes down to what you’re comparing it to, but with the advent of technology – buying a new sofa altogether nowadays is fairly cheap. Sometimes a new sofa costs only as much as upholstering an old couch altogether.

Also with many new sofa brands, there’s now the option of removable slipcovers which are easy to wash and allows the sofa to live longer.

Washing your covers isn’t rocket science

In a way, upholstery has become relatively expensive (close to a $1000 just for labour alone, whereas you can buy a sofa at IKEA for half the price). Not to mention that traditional upholstery usually requires your sofa to be sent elsewhere for a few weeks, leaving your living space empty for a while.

Getting an upholstered sofa can be quite impractical to maintain, especially when it gets dirty as you can’t really wash the fabrics.

People won’t go to an upholsterer unless it’s a sofa that can’t be recovered superficially, usually because all or part of the frame is broken.

But the good thing about upholstery though, is that it always gives a sofa an incredibly tailored look – which is always pleasing to the eye.

Why are Slipcovers the Upholstery Alternative?

Besides being easy to wash and significantly less expensive (if purchased from online retailers), slipcovers can actually look as good as upholstery when made really well.

It’s a little bit unfair but bringing IKEA back into the picture – you’ll find that many of their sofa models are slipcovered like so:

Soderhamm Corner Sofa in Liege Biscuit fabrics Karlstad Sofa in velvet Emerald fabrics and DIY tufts Manstad Slipcover in white bycast leather

That’s right, you can even slipcover a sofa in bycast leather, how neat is that?

If you do scrutinize further you can definitely see some wrinkles which is a small caveat when it comes to leather slipcovers. It really comes down to how much of a perfectionist you are and how much you’re willing to tolerate.

So if you really a super snug fit for your sofa, you could always use a staple gun to do some DIY Simple Upholstery 🙂

DIY Simple Upholstery couldn’t be Easier

This blogpost will henceforth teach you how to recover a couch without even needing to sew.

What you need are:
– Custom made-to-measure slipcovers
– A staple gun
– A friend or two to help you out

DIY Simple Upholstery is essentially just putting slipcovers on and tightening spots that look too loose. And this can be easily done in 3 steps with a staple gun.

Step 1:

First you need to put the slipcovers over your sofa

Step 2:

Then you flip the sofa over

Step 3:
You’ll just need to staple it at your discretion, but at Comfort Works we prefer flexibility. So we used velcro instead.

Staple velcro onto sofa at desired fit

So lastly, all you have to do is just fasten the slipcovers onto the velcro. Whenever laundry day comes, you get to remove it super easily!

By default, all Comfort Works’ Custom Snug Fit Slipcovers are sewn with a velcro (unless otherwise requested) and we’ll throw in a roll of velcro for you to staple onto the underside of your sofa’s base.

Besides IKEA, people who own a Pottery Barn couch or Muji sofa even would realize that this is the future we’re headed to. Getting a slipcover that’s removable and easy to wash makes the most sense long-term.

Hopefully this post was informative and if you’d like to learn more this option, you can check out this other post:

“What is a custom slipcover?”