Has anyone here ever built a couch? I have some questions on the skill level

[Michael Yadfar]

When thinking about woodworking, the kind of thing that usually comes to mind is coffee tables, chairs, dining sets, cabinets, cutting boards, etc. The one thing that really doesn't though is a couch. I've taken couches apart before and the stuff underneath the apolstery looks pretty ugly and easy to build. I've kind of flirted with the idea of building my own because for what the material appears to be, I feel I can build my own for signifantly less. I feel like the most challenging part would be putting on the leather or fabric, as that's sort of out of the expertise of a woodworker. Has anyone ever built a couch? Is it hard to do?

[Loren Woirhaye]

I've built wood craftsman style sofas with loose cushions. Doing upholstery well is an art. How difficult it is depends on the style of couch you want to build. There aren't many books on building upholstered furniture. A designer who had years of experience designing upholstered stuff for department store retail confirmed my suspicions that it's pretty much something you have to learn by doing it. She said you start from what you want it to look like and sort of work inward. Modern foams certainly simplify things for some styles of upholstered work. There's a book by Mario Dal Fabbro. The focus is on mid-century styles. I don't think there's anything about traditional things life horsehair batting and arm rolls in it.

[Bernie Briden]

35 yrs in the re-upholstery trade and my two cents would be to find an older quality sofa at a second hand furniture store. I'd be happy to address any specific questions if you'd like.

[Mike Heidrick]

Id do the WW and source out the cushions/upholstery to a pro. They have awesome fabric selections and can steer you to a long lasting fabric and the correct support, batting, and foam, fill for it.

Pay Bernie!

[Mike Heidrick]

Norm did some too if you want to watch a WW do some. Not easy. He did some leather stuff too I believe.

[Frank Martin]

Unless you can't find what you are looking for already made, I doubt you will save anything in by doing the woodworking part yourself and outsourcing the upholstery part to someone else.

[Joe Pelonio]

I wish I had a picture, but I built our first couch after we got married and rented a house in 1974. It was sort of Craftsman style, the frame made of 2x4s, joined with dowels, and dark stain (Walnut). I used upholstery fabric for the back and bottom, and my wife made cushions, 3 for the seat and 3 for the back. It was actually quite comfortable and lasted about 10 years before we bought one. I also made a matching chair to go with it. Then I made our dining room table. We actually still have that but I since put folding legs on it and it only comes out on holidays when we need extra space for the number of people, or we may use it for projects.

[Art Mulder]

I built a Mission/Craftsman-style Love seat based on couch plans from Wood.
Long time ago. Photos: http://wordsnwood.com/2003/p.loveseat/

I don't think this matches what you mean, though. This is basically a woodworking project with some cushions on top -- and I had a local upholstery company do that part.

[Michael Yadfar]

Yea I agree the upholstery part would probably be what makes it unreasonable. One thing I want to make clear is that I never came up this idea strictly to save money, I just think it's cool building your own furniture. The couch I was thinking of was like a sofa, but that's probably unreasonable unless I marry someone who does upholstery as a career. The crafts man type sounds reasonable though, if I build like a wood bench type thing and buy cushions for it

[Dale Murray]

35 yrs in the re-upholstery trade and my two cents would be to find an older quality sofa at a second hand furniture store. I'd be happy to address any specific questions if you'd like.

I hope this is not considered a hijack but you are the perfect person to ask.

I have a 9' sofa that only fits in two locations of our new home. It is about 13 years old and internal construction is all cherry. Do you feel it is feasible to remove one end of the couch, cut the frame down by 12", re-assemble, then have it reupholstered? This model sofa was offered in a shorter length at the time but we had room for the beast at the old place.

I would save all materials so they could be used as a pattern.

[Bernie Briden]

Dale....yes it's possible and I've done it a couple times for clients. I would interview a few reputable upholsterers in your area and get their take on a normal course of action (and price) before diving in. I would suggest that it could very well be more cost effective to let the upholsterer handle shortening the sofa. Springs may or may not interfere with your end of the remodel. I would also suggest that it is very unlikely that the internal frame is constructed entirely from cherry. Poplar is a common frame material, white oak was popular in years gone by but I've never seen an upholstered piece made of cherry. However, there are always exceptions to the rule.

Michael, if you're really determined to build a sofa then you should. A conservative but reasonable approach would be commit a recovering job on a second hand chair to get a feel for what you'll be up against. Take tons of pictures. Tear off a little bit of fabric and take a picture of that. Tear off a little more and take a picture of that too. Preserve all the fabric. Same with any/all padding. They are all an excellent reference.

I have re-upholstered thousands of pieces over the years, never built a frame though. Until last year. I was so enamored with Stickley's furniture design that I jumped in way over my head and built a #336 bow arm chair. http://craftsmanplans.com/Furniture%20Plans_4.htm It was an incredible challenge for me. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. So much so that I'll be building another two chairs and a sofa of the same design sometime within the 12 months.

Good luck.

(nice looking settle Art)

[Mike Cutler]

35 yrs in the re-upholstery trade and my two cents would be to find an older quality sofa at a second hand furniture store. I'd be happy to address any specific questions if you'd like.

Bernie
Exactly my thoughts. I've told my wife this numerous times. Buy an older piece and have it redone. the subframe, construction and materials are far better than what is being offered today.
My grandmother also did re-upholstery the whole time we were growing up (60's, 70's and 80's.) I learned early on that there was a lot too a couch and chair. Yep, we had to move them a lot as kids.
As an aside, one of her last projects was doing slip covers and re-upholstery for the furniture in Hearst Castle. It was a big renovation project in the early 70's.
Kinda cool too, because we got a private tour of the castle at the end, and there was the furniture we had been moving around and playing on as kids, now behind braided ropes.

PS
Want to take on a club chair from the 40's for me. ;)

[Mark Bolton]

Was going to add as well that even though and upholstered furniture carcass looks crude there is a tremendous amount of strength to stand up to use, racking, dragging, as well as the stresses the webbing and upholstery itself can put on the piece.

I have long dreamed of building some upholstered pieces but gosh, when you price even the materials alone for upholstery it's very expensive. My gf had a couch upholstered and as I recall she has about 1500 in the job. More than reasonable for a quality piece.

I would love to find an upholsterer that would let me work and sweep floors for a few weeks just to learn some of the extreme basics (enough to get me in a lot of trouble).

If you do this I hope you document it well here because I would love to learn from it and would root you along! ;-)

[Michael Yadfar]

Was going to add as well that even though and upholstered furniture carcass looks crude there is a tremendous amount of strength to stand up to use, racking, dragging, as well as the stresses the webbing and upholstery itself can put on the piece.

The crude look is what made me think it would be easy to build. Underneath the apolstery these couches look like nothing more than some scrap material thrown together, but I'm sure it's a lot tricker than it looks. I feel like if I can build a coffee table though, I can figure that out. The big trouble trouble though is apholstery, that's where this project goes south. I assume this is whats referred to as a craftsman couch, but I feel like I can probably make a wood bench and put cushions on it

[Shawn Pixley]

I made and A&C settle but hired all the upholstery out. I have done simple upholstery myself, but a nice piece, I would hire out again.

[Bernie Briden]

Michael, to clarify a bit....I wasn't trying to convince you to build Arts & Crafts style furniture. It was merely an example of me going way beyond my skill set to achieve a goal. My way of encouraging you to jump in if you're so inclined. Your take on a typical upholstered frame holds true, it is fairly crude. Actually, it would be a huge waste of time to build a frame to a more finished degree that would in the end be upholstered.

A 'build up to' approach is good advice though. That is, a second hand chair. That way you have a smaller investment of time and materials with the advantage of an already built frame. A rubber/wood mallet, a pair of side cutters and a flat screwdriver will get a piece of furniture torn down about as well as any "professional'' tools. Access to a sewing machine is essential in almost all upholstery jobs, a pneumatic staple guns is real handy but a tack hammer will do in a pinch. A mouth full of tacks will give you a real taste for how the old timers did it. Don't start with real leather, it's too darned expensive, a simple mistake will break your heart.

I say give it a whirl if you want a challenge. There's a lot of satisfaction in bringing an old piece back to life. Good thing to, I've never heard of any upholsterers retiring early and living out the rest of their days in luxury down in the Bahamas.

[Tony Leonard]

I built a love seat or setee (basically a short couch). It was not real hard to build (lots of angled joinery though), but figuring out all of the angles was tough. Google up some pics for references. Mine is shaped like a wide wingback chair, so I used those as references. Getting all of the appropriate dimensions is tough. Seat height, arm to seat, back angle, depth, etc. - all relative to how thick the cushions are and will compress. An upholsterer is great source. They like upholsterers bars too! Overall, it was a fun project. I used poplar for the frame. I let a pro do the upholstery. It was not cheap to star with a bare frame! Fabric can be very expensive too. I have also built a couple of upholstered chairs (lolling chairs similar to what Norm built). Much easier and the upholstery is cheaper. Neither of these projects saved us any money! We spent more that what we could have bought some decent pieces for. But, I built exactly what we wanted to fit our space and our needs (we're both short).

I looked at Google, upholstery books, antique books that had bare frames in them, etc. I drew both projects in CAD. The couch in 2D and the chairs in Sketchup.

Tony