Couch Happens

Earlier I mentioned in passing that Hugh and I met another couple in Prince Rupert.  Yay friends!  Anyway,  this inspired the need to be able to invite this couple over to our house for dinner sometime. This is when I started looking around at our place a realize how sad it really is.

Hugh and I are slowly accumulating a few nice pieces of furniture, but the majority of our apartment is still made up of rubbermaid containers and flatpack furniture.  Yes, we never really grew out of the student phase when it comes to home furnishings.  A lot of it is the fact that we still rent our home and have the potential to move a lot and collecting stuff means we will have to pack it or sell it when we move. Annoying.

But this means that the idea of having friends over to our apartment freaks me out.
 
One problem we have with our apartment in regards to future entertaining is a lack of seating in the kitchen area.  I have an old dining table which serves double duty as a sewing table, but we have no chairs.  I sit on a old rubbermaid type container when I need to use the sewing machine.

Here is what the empty wall in the kitchen looked like before we decided to do something about it.

So I decided I really wanted to get some seating organized for the kitchen area.  After looking around at sofas at the local furniture stores we quickly realized that there was no way we were spending $800 on a sofa so we decided that we would build one instead.

Unfortunately we did not really have much in the way of tools besides a hammer, a wrench and a few other odds and sods.  I decided I wanted a powerdrill.  After much discussion with my dad and research on the internet I finally found want I wanted and we were ready to go. (Buying a corded powerdrill in Prince Rupert is surprisingly difficult).

Our sofa bench had to be able to fit in our space and be high enough to to fit some of our other rubbermaid containers underneath. (Hidden storage rules.) It also had to be made with the fewest cuts as we we had to ask Home Hardware to cut the wood to length.

This is the base of the sofa put together. Well, most of it anyway. Note the cool powerdrill next to Hugh.  That was my anniversary gift.  I always ask for very nontraditional anniversary gifts.

And here it is all finished.

It was made out of 2X4's (which apparently are no longer 2"X4" anymore, thieving companies) and one sheet of 3/4" plywood.  In total to cost about $60.00 for the wood.

I also made the cushions out of mattress toppers from the local Fields store which was going out of business and old blankets.

Twin blanket sewn together waiting for some foam

And then I covered it with some fabric I had in my stash and it became the above picture. Out of leftover corduroy fabric from this jumper I made a cushion for the backrest and used the last of the fabric to edge the bottom of the sofa so the bins could not be seen anymore. 

I purchased a rug and with some reorganizing my ugly wall became this:

Did you scroll up to the top to see the original space?  Before and after!
Pretty neat huh?

I bought the pillows and plan to one day recover them with some pretty fabric.  The table in front came from the thrift store for $12 including delivery. The rug is a Home hardware find.

For reference here are a few more of the kitchen.

another angle

there's the sewing/dining table

yes there is carpet in the kitchen

It has worked out pretty well.  When we had guests over for dinner we moved the smaller table and moved the dining table up to the couch and Hugh and I sat on stools.  Yay seating for four!

Anyway, I am much happier with the kitchen not looking so horrible.  Amazing what the potential for guests will do for your initiative. :)  Now I don't have to be embarrassed if someone comes over to visit.