DIY Vintage Couch Makeover with Paint

Today I am sharing a sofa reconstruction. I have seen vintage couches be refurbished many times and the last few I saw had the fabric painted. I thought why can’t I do that?

Painting the fabric of the couch is simple and it saves a lot of time when refurbishing a couch or love seat because you don’t have to reupholster it. Plus a bonus usually you have extra paint on hand so it doesn’t cost very much!

I am going to walk you through step by step of how I refurbished my vintage couch.

How to Cover an Old Couch

Items needed for the project:

Paint and paint brush of your choice
Water and bowl or tub to hold water
Sander, sanding paper, etc.
Worx MakerX crafting tool
Paint brushes
Rag or old towel
Sealer of choice

Before Upholstery Paint on Couch

I have this vintage couch for a while now but wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle the project. I knew it was going to be difficult and tedious to redo the whole couch. I wasn’t even going to try it until I received the Worx MakerX tool. Once I had the tools I knew I could tackle the project much easier.

The multi-tool allowed me to really sand down all the small areas and tight areas of the wood on the couch. Below is the process that I completed making over the couch with paint!

Step One Remove Backing and Hardware from Couch

Start taking off the backing, nails or staples, and unwanted fabric from the couch. I chose to remove all backing and keep the front top cushion area to paint. The couch cushions were ripped and torn so I was unable to use them to paint as well.

Step Two Paint Upholstery Couch

In the photo above on the left is two paint samples in green and on the right are two white paint samples. Because the fabric is white it is hard to see the white but it is there.

I used paint I had on hand for the project the green is color Chimmichuri from Benjamin Moore with semi-gloss furniture paint. The white paint swatches on the right are Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Linen white.

To paint the fabric on the couch you need two things. Wet fabric and water-downed paint. You want to dye the fabric more than actually paint it. Watering down the paint and having really wet fabric will make the fibers soak up the color and dye it rather than add a thick layer on top of it.

I took a piece of the fabric off the back of the couch to test paint. Before painting the samples I soaked the fabric with a wet rag.

On the top left and right, I had a ration of 1:5 water to paint. So hardly any water. As you can see it is thicker and once the samples dried it was making the fabric harder and too stiff.

On the bottom left and bottom right I had a ratio of 3:5 water to paint. I little more than half paint and half water. It dried much lighter but was soft to the touch. Dying the fabric and not making it really stiff and hard.

Using my rag and bowl of water I then soaked the fabric on the couch. I soaked the entire back and sides that was left.

I watered down the paint to the 3:5 ration and painted the fabric. The paint goes right on easily.

The first coat is on. I did not tape off because I am sanding down the wood after to paint as well.

After waiting 20 minutes for the first coat of paint to dry I sanded the fabric with 120 grit paper. To remove any of the roughness. Doing this will make any thicker areas of paint come off and make it more comfortable for sitting in later on.

After the first sanding is done. You can see that there is a lot of spots that didn’t soak up the fabric. So I did another coat. Let that dry and sanded it one more time. So two coats of paint total.

Close up after the two coats are dry.

Step 3 Sand Wood on Couch

After painting the fabric I went on to sand down the wood to paint green as well.

As you can see in the photo above there are a lot of little crevices and groves to sand down. Luckily I had the Worx MakerX crafting tool. It came in handy to sand inside these little crevices.

The Worx MakerX crafting tool combo kit is portable and plugs into a battery making it super easy to take with you and use for multiple types of projects. I used it to sand down inside these little crevices and it worked out great. The size of the precision tool was perfect for this job.

To use the Worx MakerX you choose between multiple different heads. For this project, I used two different small sanding options. To change them out you pull of the top portion and unscrew the bottom similar to a drill. Changing out pieces only takes seconds.

Once you have your choice all you have to do is plug in the handheld tool into the battery so it is portable. Switch on the power and choose the speed. The speed range is from slow to really high. The battery lasted for as long as I needed to use the multi-tool!

Step Four Paint the Wood

After the sanding was done I painted the wood with the green paint. I used the same paint brush and added to coats.

Step Five Distress Wood

I chose to distress the wood after with sandpaper to give it some more texture and character. I used a 120 grit sandpaper sheet.

Step Six Seal Wood

I chose to seal with a wax wood sealer. I wiped on a small amount with a paper towel.

After 15 minutes of drying I wiped off the wax with a microfiber cloth and it was done!

After Vintage Fabric Painted Couch Review

Once it was all done I added cushions. 4 cushions measuring 20×20 fit perfectly! Tufted couch cushions are from Target.

I highly recommend doing this easy DIY project. Because my upholstery fabric was white it only took two coats. Plan on doing more coats if the fabric is darker.