Between the Rafters: 60's Mod Couch Reupholster -- Installment 4

If you'll remember last time we put on our sofa decking. This time we are going to put on the inside arms of the sofa. We are changing the look of sofa arms - no more seam and cording running up the middle - so we needed to add more padding to each of the arms. We first took the staple gun and stapled the existing foam to the sofa frame.

Next we measured and cut a piece of foam to cover the wood frame arm visible in the picture above. When we had that cut we stapled it in place.

The arm already had foam on the inside so we left that as is.

We covered both of the inside arms in cotton batting.

We then measured and cut our fabric. Remember to add two inches to each side you cut. So here you'll add two inches to both of the sides, the top and the bottom. Place the fabric over the inside of the arm.

You can see we have the needle back out (being held in the photo above). You'll need to make a straight cut this time to go around the frame arm in the front and the back. The picture below shows you where you'll want to place the needle on the backside of the arm in front.

After you've made your cuts (remember front and back) next comes the fun part - stapling! Staple the same way as before. Start in the middle, go out a few on either side, then move to the bottom and do the same. After you've made a few staples in the bottom, move back to the top. Rinse, wash, repeat. Remember to pull your fabric tight and not make any wrinkles or puckers. Stop before you get to the front and back of the arms on the top since you'll be making special curves/folds there (see later in post). Since our sofa arm is curved at the top, we made cuts in the fabric to help it go around the curve.

When you've got the top (all except the very front and back) and the bottom stapled, move to the sides of arms. In back you'll need to make a special fold at the top. The style that you make this curve in is a personal preference. You can see in the picture below that we tucked our fabric under and stapled for our fold. Remember to staple back far enough to get the back of the sofa on.

The fold in the front is also a personal preference. We wanted a clean looking fold since the couch has straight lines. We had to fiddle with it many times to get it a way we liked it.