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Thursday, March 17, 2016

Freshening up the living room

My throw pillows were starting to resemble prison-issue bedding, so last month I decided to redo them. I had to replace the worn pillows as well as the covers, so before sewing some cases, I bought new pillows online at Target. I DO NOT RECOMMEND. These were the flimsiest, squishiest, most under-stuffed pitiful excuses for throw pillows you have ever seen.
Before I realized that, however, I'd already headed to Hobby Lobby for some pretty affordable upholstery fabric ($13 a yard, but it's wide-width fabric, so I only needed a yard total). I did three large cushions and two small (we already owned two small pillows that did not need to be replaced). I did one large cushion and the backs of the two smaller ones in a coordinated solid.

See the back?

I ended up coping with the squishy, useless pillows by actually stuffing TWO pillows into each cover: One old, flat pillow and one new, overly soft pillow. That's why the covers don't fit perfectly and are creating those annoying dog-ear corners - not the best look, but much more comfortable now that they have some heft and body.

I also got rid of our coat rack. There was nothing wrong with it; it just seemed to me like we were decorating our living room with our coats!

I bought this small cabinet and, rather than put shelves in, instead screwed hooks into the side and ceiling to hang our jackets on.

The small cabinet on the bottom is used for hats, umbrellas, and ponchos leftover from our Peru trip (I am sure I'll need one at some point, right? Or am I hoarding?).

3 comments:

  1. We have a coat rack by our front door and I used to keep ALL my current running shoes by the door. So until about a month ago, as soon as you walked in our house, you were confronted with a minimum of 4 pairs of sneakers, plus any of husband's shoes or any of my work shoes. The nice thing was that it encouraged our guests to take off their shoes and likely extended our carpet life a bit. But when it hit me it looked awful (years after living with it) then I couldn't stand it. I ended up just doing an over door shoe bag thing that's in our laundry room, out of sight but also near the front door, and I'm much happier with how it looks!

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  2. Your pillows turned out great! That is as bummer that the quality of the pillows from Target was so poor, though. I learned how to sew a pillow case when I was in 4-H but haven't used a sewing machine since and don't know that I ever will... I'm just terrible at it! But I am envious of those who are crafty and can do things like this because it's so much cheaper to make your own v. buying them!

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