But then life happened. Our apartment in Wisconsin never filled before our lease was finally up in July, meaning we sank the rest of our life savings (after paying our house and Hubby's commuter car down payments) into paying off the lease. I blame our landlord who assured us there would be no competing apartments in the building, that she'd had a long waiting list to see it as soon as we vacated, and the fact that she only works 20 hours per week (and it was a low-income unit, meaning anyone who qualified to rent it didn't have freedom to come see it when she worked 10-3 on only 4 week-days!)... but now that we're done with that and working to pay off the bills that accumulated since we didn't have our savings to use for the things we had planned to use it for (i.e. the house improvements), we've decided not to get a new couch. We talked about using next year's tax return for it and a new computer (for me), but we just decided not to do either. I can use Hubby's new laptop that he ended up not having to take to work for his new job, and our couch will hold up a few more years if we're nice to it.
But our couch had one major flaw. The pillows. 2 pillows came with the couch when my mom purchased it for us (as a trade for keeping my college computer for herself...and a wedding gift... in addition to the whole wedding itself!) but I have hated those pillows since Day 1.
The funny thing is, I'm a big fan of interior decorating. Bedding chocices, I'm in. Rugs to hem and haw, sure. Curtains aren't my forte, but I eventually decide what I like. But pillows? I cannot decide about pillows to save my life. I've bought several and always returned them, unable to commit. I've passed many more in the aisles and been too scared to even toss them in the cart.
So we've lived with these ugly things for 6 1/2 years!
Our walls in the living room are Olympic Quill, a very subtle warm grey, and our wool rug from Pottery Barn is a natural background with yellow, orange, red, blue, green, and brown florals. A few weeks ago, I took a quick spin through World Market and found the perfect fabric to make new pillows for our couch...and by fabric, I mean cloth napkins! At $2.99 a piece, I picked up 4 to make 2 pillows.
I had hoped to make them as slip covers for the current pillows, but they were just barely too small to allow that. And since I did truly hate the original pillows, I braved the truth and did this:
After sewing 2 napkins together face-to-face, leaving a few inches open on the last side, I flipped them right-side-out and began to stuff with the older stuffing (which definitely benefited from being separated and re-fluffed into a new form after 6 years of flattening together in the old covers). Then I hand-sewed the openings to close up the final seams.
Et Voila!
They look great with our rug, and they'll even work on the new couch if we do get it a few years down the road! The thing I love about the rug and pillows is that they both will work if we ever change the wall color. Before painting the Quill grey, we debated between a warm butter color or the grey and went with the more modern grey color since our house has such an open floor plan and needed a color that worked in so many open spaces. We love it, but in a future home, if we want a warmer color, both items work without having to start from the ground-up with decor in addition to the paint then!
What do you think? Are you a pillow-phobe like me? Have you given up on finding pre-made pillows and made your own? Have you ever used napkins to make pillow covers? They're usually a great size and are pre-cut...so easy!
That is the perfect fabric! I have some pillow projects I need to take on, but my main stumbling block right now are the 500 other projects I need to do first, like the nursery. ;)
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